It's in the can

Before your next trip to the supermarket, read Sue Shephard’s Pickled,
Potted and Canned. The shelves will look quite different once you discover
why the invention of the sausage was essential to the conquests of Imperial Rome
and how Carnation Milk fuelled the Klondike gold rush. All this delightful
collection of stories lacks is some real science to explain how all these
methods of food preservation work. Published by Headline, £15.99, ISBN
0747223343.