On 2013-09-03 16:13:38 +0000, Gary Woods said:

Tom Gardner wrote:

Several decades ago several people were poisoned by botulism
in canned salmon from a major manufacturer. I remember this
since at the end of the week it was in the news my cousin
married one of the daughters of the MD of the company.

There was an incident in the U.S. some time ago with botulism and a few
fatalities from canned mushroom soup....the processor had problems with the
apparatus that monitors temperatures (required for commercial processing)
during the canning cycle, and temperatures hadn't been high enough for long
enough.

BTW, I can tomatoes using a pressure canner (5 pounds/15 minutes), not for
safety reasons, but because it takes a LOT less electrical energy to do
than heating a big pot of water. Not to mention how long it takes to boil
a big pot of water on one of those pretty "glass top"
stove....erm...cookers.

My grandmother (English, Co. Durham origin) used to talk of a stove,
not a cooker. It was a gas stove, not (to her) a gas cooker. Was that
unusual in UK 60 or so years ago? I really don't know.
--
Sacha