Napoleon was in trouble. (Yes, that Napoleon.) He wanted to conquer lands across the world, but that also meant feeding his army in lands across the world—in places as far away (and decidedly not France) as Egypt.
So he did what any great leader would do. He tried to find someone smart who could solve this problem for him.
The French emperor put out a call for innovations in food preservation to feed his army, launching a competition in which the winner with the best idea would receive twelve thousand francs. A victor was eventually crowned: Nicolas Appert, who introduced the brand-spanking-new process of canning in L’art de conserver pendant plusiers années toutes les substances animales et végétales in 1810. (I’ll save you the trip to Google Translate—it means “the art of preserving all animal and plant substances for several years.”) No longer would food spoil during transportation or grow rotten shortly after harvesting. With Appert’s new process, fruits, vegetables, and other ingredients could be hauled all over, delivering a meal with just the pop of a lid.
