Preserving Quality Of Honey

Preserving Quality Of Honey


Honey was used for ages as a preserver of organic matters. In medieval England meats and leather were cured in honey. In Sudan they boil meat in honey to preserve it. In Ceylon honey is used instead of salt as a conserver.

Honey is excellent to preserve fruit because it intensifies the original flavor of fruit to which it adds its own aroma. The milder flavored honeys are preferred for preserving fruits, the stronger flavored ones are better for pickling. Jams, jellies and marmalades made with honey are superior to those in which sugar is used. The world-famous Bar-le-duc (currant jam) of France is made with honey. Pickled fruits are prepared with honey, vinegar and water to which ginger, cloves, cinnamon and allspice are added. The spiced honey of the Turks is well known.

Ripe fruits contain a considerable amount of sugar. Of course, if they were pickled prematurely (green) and they were not long enough exposed to the sun and only incompletely ripened, the creative force of Nature was interrupted and resulted in a failure to convert the acids into natural sugar. Such fruits, when they are preserved, require the addition of a great amount of refined sugar to make up for the deficiency, that is, for the natural sweetness.

Plant-grafts, birds' eggs and valuable seeds which must be transported to different climates can be preserved in honey for a considerable time.

All sweet media had an age-old repute to preserve not only organic matters but life itself. This can be verified by the experience of our own Benjamin Franklin, one of the greatest of the great. While in France, he received from America a quantity of Madeira wine, which had been bottled in Virginia. In some of the bottles he found a few dead flies, which he exposed to the warm sun, in the month of July; and in less than three hours these apparently dead insects recovered life, which had been so long suspended. At first they appeared as if convulsed; they then raised themselves on their legs, cleaned their eyes with their forefeet, dressed their wings with the hind legs, and began in a little while to fly about. This acute philosopher proposed, therefore, the following question:—"Since, by such a complete suspension of all internal as well as external consumption, it is possible to produce a pause of life, and at the same time to preserve the vital principle, might not such a process be employed in regard to man? And if that be the case," added Franklin, like a true patriot, "I can imagine no greater pleasure than to cause myself to be immersed along with a few good friends in Madeira wine, and to be again called to life at the end of fifty or more years, by the genial solar rays of my native country, only that I may see what improvement the State has made, and what changes time has brought along with it."

The preserving and hygroscopic powers of honey could be converted to divers uses in several branches of industry. It is a regret-table oversight on the part of the cigar and cigarette manufacturers, for instance, that an admixture of honey to the tobacco is not employed more universally. Honey preserves the original flavor of the tobacco, to which it adds its own aroma and sweetness; besides, it would protect the stock from becoming dry. Many foreign pipe-mixtures and chewing tobacco contain honey which considerably enhances their mellowness. Lately, American packers have been experimenting with honey-cured meats. Jewelers darken natural onyx with honey. There are about a million and a half golf balls manufactured yearly in the United States containing honey in their centers which is supposed to greatly enhance their resiliency. Carbon paper and sail cloth are more tenacious when treated with honey. Chewing gum is another product for which honey could be utilized to advantage, on account of its ability to retain moisture.

Honey has innumerable chemical and technical possibilities. Brewers ought to pry into the secrets of how the ancient Saxon "beor", honey beer, was made (beo = bee, from which the term beer was derived). Apparently there is a tendency today to pro-duce variety instead of quality because it offers a wider field for exploitation and a better opportunity to play the favorite modern sport—called competition.