Etymology of Canning

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Derek from Milwaukee.

Hi, Derek. Welcome to the show.

Hey, buddy. What’s up?

Oh, I had a question about the origin of a word.

Okay.

I was at my parents and they asked me to join them to can, an annual tradition.

And I declined, partly because I’ve never seen cans when we do this.

All I see are jars.

And I argued, even though it had no meaning, why it was called canning.

Or my question is, why is it called canning?

It’s not canning.

It’s jarring.

And what were you putting up?

We put up peppers, hot peppers.

Ooh.

Hot peppers.

So they invited you for the annual tradition of canning hot peppers.

That sounds exciting.

It’s not exciting.

Why not?

There should be drinking, right?

Sounds like a good time.

Yeah, yeah.

Oh, but it’s with your family.

Strong odor of vinegar, and it’s a long day.

Okay.

A lot of heat in the kitchen.

Not for me.

I remember.

I helped with my grandma with some canning when I was a boy.

You know, just grapes and things.

It was, you know, making jams and jellies.

Yeah, it’s a lot of work.

And then you just have lots and lots of hot peppers.

You’re kind of just getting bossed around by the older people.

Right?

Sure.

And did you actually use cans or did you use jars?

No, and it’s very jarring that we use jars instead of cans.

Yeah.

Can you believe it?

I can’t.

So there’s a really great explanation for this,

And it all involves knowing when things happened.

A lot of the work that we do on this show in explaining things,

We can prove and disuse things because if A is older than B,

Then A couldn’t have come from B.

Turns out that canning was invented in the late 1700s.

But it was first invented, and they used thin glass jars for this.

Very thin, more like a drinking glass,

Which couldn’t withstand kind of the factory industrial environment.

You’ve got to remember, this is a period when industrialization was big,

And canning food actually was a practical thing that was possible.

So they switched to metal cans.

So it’s the same process.

It involves a lot of heat.

It involves kind of a vacuum packing, basically, is what happens as well.

You kill off the bacteria.

You remove the air so the other bacteria can’t get in there.

The aerobic bacteria can’t fester, and the food will last a long time.

You can put it on the shelf.

And these canned foods can make it overseas to your armies.

You can actually ship your domestic crops overseas to feed your armies who are fighting your wars, right?

So this must have been this huge discovery.

Big.

Giant.

But what happened was, you know, you can’t use the thin glass jars.

They use the cans.

But the same principles that are used in the factories found their way into the kitchen.

But in the kitchen, it’s the opposite.

Metal cans aren’t practical.

It’s hard to seal your own cans.

And they’re expensive.

Glass is cheaper.

Well, mason jars came along, oh, mid-1800s, around 1850s or so.

Mason jars are thick and sturdy.

You can actually drop a mason jar quite a few times before it breaks.

And this replaced the metal cans.

But the process kept its old name.

It kept the name of canning.

And so we are using the old canning process, but with a new vessel.

Anyway, so there you go.

It’s all about timing.

So, Derek, are you going to send us some of those hot peppers,

Or are you going to save them all for yourself?

I will pass them along happily.

Oh, okay.

Well, I’m a big fan of hot peppers, even though my digestive system doesn’t like them.

Yeah, send them to Southern California.

I hope we helped, Derek.

Thank you for calling.

You did.

Thank you.

All right, cheers.

All right, bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

Cheers.

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