Aluminium cans are making a comeback

Many Indians have one fond memory of canned foods. It is of a can of condensed milk being pierced and the thick, sweet, yellow liquid oozing out. Apart from that we have little use for cans. Plastic, glass and Tetra Paks have replaced the Dalda and biscuits tins of the past. Even canned baked beans are rarely found these days.It is different elsewhere. While canned foods might not be as important as they once were, they are still stocked as emergency staples — and Covid-19 has hugely boosted this demand. In July, aluminium can producers in the US reported they were running out of capacity to deal with increased demand. One industry report suggested that the global metal cans market was set to grow by $8.92 billion over 2020-24.Recyclable metal cans win the favour of the environmentally conscious. They are also favoured by those believe in imminent catastrophes and the need to prepare for them by building and stocking shelters. Websites for these doomsday preppers are full of information about the best canned foods to buy — and Covid is seen as the first confirmation of their fears. 77694014This resurgence of cans comes in time to mark the 150th and 100th anniversaries of the invention and perfection of the devices that really made their widespread use possible. When the technology to seal foods in metal containers was developed in the early 19th century, the ability to open them easily was not. Peter Durand, who received the first patent for canning in 1810, envisioned them used primarily by the Royal Navy, with large cans of food for long voyages and plenty of manpower on-board to hack them open with chisels.The first gadgets to open cans simply combined a spike to puncture the lids and a knife to saw around the rim. Canned foods were sold for home use by then, but opening them was still so hard that some customers got the shop to do the job. (Self-opening cans were developed in the 1860s and used for foods like canned sardines, but did not become more popular due to their extra cost, and concerns about how well sealed they really were.)It was William Lyman, an American inventor, who realised that a sharp-edged wheel would be a neater solution and received a patent for a device using this in 1870. In 1920, Edwin Anderson got a patent for linking Lyman’s wheel to a pair of pivoted handles to grip the can as it was pierced, and in 1925 another wheel was added to make the cutting even more effective. 77694043This is still the best can opener design, and it came as increasing urbanisation in the US drove greater demand for canned foods, in more variety and better quality, for homes. Even earlier, British manufacturers had realised the need for an alternative to military supply, with its low margins and temptations to cut corners. In the 1840s, a Hungarian entrepreneur set up a beef cannery in Moldavia to supply the Royal Navy at really low rates. But the canning was faulty, leading to scandals of spoiled meat that threatened the image of canned foods entirely.The problem was that consumers had little taste for canned foods, when fresh was easily available. But a new market was growing as the British empire expanded, leading to more British moving to the colonies, where they were desperate for a taste of home, even in a can. Serving canned meats, fruits and vegetables became a sign of prestige and, in India after 1857, a way to distinguish the new colonialists from the disreputable East India Company officials with their taste for Indian curries.In The Hungry Empire, Lizzie Collingham writes that “the colonial dining room was seen as a stage where the official put on a performance of civilisation”. Canned foods were props for this and the Times of India in the 19th century was full of ads for them. In Culinary Jottings for Madras, Colonel Kenney-Herbert, who disliked their overuse, wrote of how the butler “delights in filling the shelves of the store-room with rows of tins”. It was hardly surprising that Indian servants approved of such an easy way to keep their employers happy. 77694026Canning also sustained British agriculture and fisheries. Collingham writes that food processing made “a significant contribution to the foundations of Britain’s industrial might” with every canning factory supporting huge numbers of commercial farmers and fishing boats. By the 1870s, Crosse & Blackwell, one of the oldest canning companies, was exporting “more than 30,000 one-pound tins of Oxford sausages, 34,000 half-pint cans of oysters, more than 3,000 dried ox tongues, 17,000 cans of Cheddar and Berkeley cheese”.This excessive identification with the British and their food may be one reason why cans fell out of favour in India. In the decades after Independence, there was still some demand from expatriates, or Anglicised Indians with a taste for their food, but this has mostly disappeared now. Condensed milk is the exception, possibly because Nestlé, one of the main producers (which also once owned Crosse & Blackwell), has marketed it as an ingredient for Indian sweets. Even other foods once sold in tins — like alphonso mango pulp or the range of upmarket foods sold by ITC in their Kitchens of India range — are now sold in frozen or flexible packing form.This is a pity in some ways because cans give a solid basis to storerooms, which is, as those doomsday preppers know, rather comforting. And while Indians might disdain cans, Indian food is oddly well suited to canning. Our slowcooked and well-spiced dishes, made in pressure cookers much like the ones used for canning, do very well in cans. A friend in the UK swears that the canned undhiu he can buy there is quite as good as the versions freshly made — in sealed pots — in India. As restaurants continue to stay closed, perhaps some could consider making sealed versions of their favourite dishes for can-opener-wielding consumers to savour at home.75595783

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