Critical Clues from Clams

After finding the solution to his smelly canned clams, Underwood also worked pro bono with Prescott on the chemical dynamics of soured canned corn, a product the Underwood Company did not sell, wrote Genevieve Wanucha in a 2008 article for MIT’s Scope magazine entitled, “Two Happy Clams: The Friendship that Forged Food Science.” The duo decided they needed to study corn at the point where spoilage began, when it was peeled from the husk. They set up shop in an empty factory in Oxford, Maine, near cornfields, where they improvised with a makeshift incubator. “Cans of corn heating in this creation exploded often, spraying yellow mush onto the factory floor as they worked and slept,” Wanucha wrote.

Underwood took plenty of slides of the newly discovered organisms. Wrote Wanucha, “The March 1898 issue of Technology Quarterly boasted photographs printed on glossy white paper of actual-size petri dishes filled with circular spidery blooms of bacillus, each like a telescopic glance at a pockmarked moon.”

The two men traveled to Buffalo, N.Y., in February 1898, to present their canned corn findings at the Atlantic Trade Packers Association meeting, where they reported that bacterial blooms could be canned safely after being scalded for 55 minutes. The researchers then expanded their work to canned peas, tomatoes, spinach, sardines, and lobster meat.

Their work transcended mere scientific exploration, Wanucha wrote. “Their academic heirs at MIT later reminisced that these two men found in food science a way to engage their love of the natural world, not only because they could seek out the hiding spots of pathogens in cornfields and fjords, but because they could spend their free time fishing and photographing their trips. But this friendship stood for more than an enthusiastic dedication to their job. Their discoveries established the field of food science and technology at MIT—and quite charitably. Prescott and Underwood never took out (what would have likely been) a very profitable patent on their thermal-canning processes.”

BIO

Valigra is a freelance writer based in Cambridge, Mass. Reach her at [email protected].