The canning process was patented in 1810 by the French Inventor Phillipe de Girard and British merchant Peter Durand. This was the beginning of using tin cans (and eventually steel) to preserve food. The first can opener was patented in 1858 by Ezra Warner in Waterbury, Connecticut. When you look at the problems in the world and get overwhelmed with the scope of what we all must overcome, remember there is hope. After the invention of the can it took 48 years and an entirely different country to create the can opener. Our future is a hopeful one.
From 1810 to 1858 opening a can required grit and determination with instructions such as “cut round the top near the outer edge with a chisel and hammer.” We image a conversation between Phillipe de Girard and Peter Durand to have passed like this:
Phillipe: Hey Peter, look what I created.
Peter: What is it?
Phillipe: It’s a fully enclosed metal cylinder. I call it the can.
Peter: What’s it do?
Phillipe: It stores food so it can last longer without spoiling.
Peter: Is there food in there right now?
Phillipe: Yeah, half a baguette.
Peter: How do you get it out?
Phillipe: I don’t know.
Peter: What do you mean you don’t know. You put it in there.
Phillipe: I guess you could smash it on the floor and see if that eventually gets it open.
Peter: There isn’t an easier way?
Phillipe: You know what, Peter. I don’t need your lip. This is a great invention. Open it however you want.
Peter: I just feel like you created a chore. How does it help to preserve food if you can’t get it out?
Phillipe throws the can at Peter’s head. Peter’s eye immediately begins to swell
Phillipe: How about this, how about you don’t get the food out. You take your ass right down to the patent office and get me my patent.
Peter now docile takes the can and begins to leave
Phillipe: It’s the year 1810, Peter! Everything is hard, it’s not like it’s the 2,000s where we have satellites and internet and cars to help us out all the time. And and and you know what! Maybe if God put his apples of knowledge in my brilliant cans instead of on a tree Adam and Eve wouldn’t have been able to eat them. How about that!
End Scene
Even Ezra’s can opener in 1858 was not considered safe for domestic use but provided a little bit better solution to the opening of cans. The main components of Ezra’s can opener were referred to as the “bayonet” and the “sickle” if that gives you an idea of the harm you can cause to yourself while opening a can. In 1870, Willie Lyman of Meriden, Connecticut patented the first can opener with a rotating wheel like we see in can openers today.
The age-old problem of food preservation was solved with the invention of the can. The problem of the can was solved 48 years later with the invention of the can opener and more realistically truly solved in 1870 with Willie Lyman’s improved can opener.
When the problems of the world look insurmountable remember it took nearly 50 years to invent a can opener. That’s five decades of struggle, despair, futility, and pain in the effort to open a can. A solution is coming. But it may take 48 years beyond tomorrow.
Well that was an easy one. That’s about all I have to say about that. Hope everyone is properly motivated and they have no stress nor anxiety because it washed away with the can opener revelation. There’s a reason we call it a can and not a can’t.
So, what now what now. Still have a third of an article to kill. My editor is always on my ass about word count. I try to argue that it’s about quality over quantity but he usually just gives me the finger. Which has a 0-word count and says so much. Which proves my point of quality over quantity.
I think this is good. I think this is a good enough word count to submit. Thanks for sticking with me to the end. I really appreciate it. Maybe it wasn’t only cans that were opened today. Maybe it was our friendship too. Maybe it opened and bloomed.