MEAT PRESERVING.

West Coast Times, Issue 706, 28 December 1867, Page 4

MEAT PRESERVING.

The " Australasian" of Dec. 7, says : — A process of preserving meat has at last been introduced into Victoria which promises to solve the difficulty that has hitherto attended the matter, and at once to establish a. great industry in Australia and to cheapen the great necessary of life in England. Several experiments in meat preserving have been tried in Melbourne, but most of them with a more or less unsatisfactory result ; the meat wanted that flavour and delicacy which were necessary to secure a position for it in competition with fresh meat in the home market. We had the pleasure on Wednesday of tasting, at Menzie's Hotel, along with some thirty or forty gentlemen, a number of cases of meat preserved by Mr S. S. Ritchie, according to one of the simplest and most inexpensive processes that could possibly be imagined. The meat was prepared in Melbourne, and has been over two months in the case. There were samples of boiled beef, roast mutton, and roast beef; and when thu cases were opened the purity of the aroma which arose from the meat was sufficient to show that it had lost none of its esst ntial qualities. The " tasting" proved equally satisfactory. Nearly all the gentlemen present lunched off the meat and it was generally pronounced to be excellent, and to have lost neither its flavor, its succulence, nor its tenderness. A case of tongue was also opened, which was prepared some two years ago, in Europe, after the same process. It was found to be in good condition, though perhaps its characteristics were not so completely preserved as in the other meat. Now as to the process by which this result has been accomplished. It is of the most simple description, and requires only to be carried out with care and attention. The air is taken from the canister, and the meat is preserved in the vacuum. It is placed in the tin in a raw or parboiled state; the tin is then 'put in a chemical solution capable of producing a high temperature. By the heat the meat is cooked and the air evaporated in the form of steam. At the proper moment the canister is sealed and the process is complete. The great recommendation of this method is, that the meat is preserved entirely from any gaseous or other unpleasant flavour, which more or less attaches to the meat prepared by any other process. Then it is neither novel nor experimental. Large quantities of meat prepared on this system were used by both the French and English armies during the Crimean war. The great meat question is thus in a fair way of solution. The process which we hare described offers advantages which no other method that we are acquainted with has approached ; and it is not, therefore, surprising that several gentlemen under whose notice it has been brought are endeavouring to form a company to carry it on on an extensive scale. The company has a fine field of operations before it. Meat was lately selling in London at lOd and Is per pound, and meat prepared under this sjstem can be sold in the London Market with a handsome profit at 3d a pound. Great care, however, must be taken to place meat of the best quality in the home market. People have been so frequently deceived with ill-preserved and flavourless meat that they have become sceptical of getting realty good beef or mutton in a preserved state. If, however, a market is secured, it offers the most feasible and most profitable mode of using our waste meat, and may be the commencement of an industry of great magnitude and value. The process is so simple that as he was suggested on -Wednesday, it might be used to improve the condition of the Melbourne meat market. Although that article is cheap enough, yet it is wellknown that householders, especially of the smaller class have some difficult}' in getting a really good-joint. The cattle and sheep are driven great distances, and before their carcases reach the butcher's shop they seem to have lost nearly all their juiceness. If, however, the cattle were killed at the stations and the meat preserved, and sold in the butcher's shops at 3d per j.ound, we have no doubt that in the summer time at least, it would command a good market.