Even before the early modern era, creation of shelf-stable foods was one of the fundamental processes designed to secure the food supply of a greater proportion of the population. The unpredictability of harvest yields (see Famine and food riots), as well as the seasonally dependent supply of specific foods, called for stockpiling. With long-distance trade of foodstuffs in its infancy, people in the Middle Ages and the early modern era were obliged to preserve a significant portion of th…