Can without opener

Did you know that the can opener was invented 48 years after the can? The first tin can was made in 1810 by a french inventor Nicolas Appert, who won the 12,000 franc reward Napoleon Bonaparte offered for a practical method of food preservation for armies on the march. He didn't think of the problem of opening it so the French soldiers had to use chisels, knives or rocks to cut out the rather thick metal.

The first cans were sealed with lead soldering which sometimes led to lead poisoning. But this was not the only drawback of early canning. The method of pasteurisation was unknown for some more 100 years therefore microbes in the food also caused diseases.