I have heard it said that war and the waging of war is responsible for many of the innovations in the world. I thought of that today as I was searching for the origins of canning (those pickles got a bunch of questions going). Anyway, at Safefood.org they have A Short History of Processed Foods. Seems that when Napoleon pushed into Russia, there was a big problem: his army suffered more from starvation than from enemy fire. The French government offered a reward to anyone who developed a method of preserving food. One Nicolas Appert (a candy-maker, hey, you know he had to be a good guy) experimented with putting foods in bottles, corking them, and then putting them in boiling water. It worked, and he received the prize from Napoleon himself.