08. Fruits Preserved

Fruits Preserved As grapes and other fruits were so important a part of the food of the ancients, they would, by necessity, invent methods for preserving them fresh. Josephus, in his The Wars of the Jews, Book 7, Chapter 8, Section 4, makes mention of a fortress in Palestine called Masada, built by Herod. “For here was laid up corn in large quantities, and such as would subsist men for a long time: here was also wine and oil in abundance, with all kinds of pulse and dates heaped up together. These fruits were also fresh and full ripe, and no way inferior to such fruits newly laid in, although they were little short of a hundred years from the laying in of these provisions.” In a footnote William Whiston, the translator, says: “Pliny and others confirm this strange paradox, that provisions thus laid up against sieges will continue good an hundred years, as Spanheim notes upon this place.”

Swinburn  says “that in Spain they also have the secret of preserving grapes sound and juicy from one season to another—Bible Commentary, p. 278.

Mr. E.C. Delavan states that when he was in Florence, Italy, Signor Pippini, one of the largest wine manufacturers, told him “that he had then in his lofts, for the use of his table, until the next vintage, a quantity of grapes sufficient to make one hundred gallons of wine; that grapes could always be had, at any time of the year, to make any desirable quantity; and that there was nothing in the way of obtaining the fruit of the vine free from fermentation in wine countries at any period. A large basket of grapes was sent to my lodgings, which were as delicious, and looked as fresh, as if recently taken from the vines, though they had been picked for months”—Bible Commentary, p. 278. Rev. Dr. H. Duff, in his Travels through the South of Europe, most fully confirms this view—Nott, London Ed. p. 57, note.