Introduction
The processing into food of raw materials from hunting, gathering,
fishing and subsequently arable and livestock
farming has always had two
objectives: to preserve nutrients in order to defer the time and place of
consumption, and develop products with a wide variety of textures and
flavors to satisfy the sensory needs of consumers. The development of arable
and livestock farming has facilitated
an improved control of supply, even
though the provision of agricultural products has long remained very
irregular due to climatic or health risks and the seasonality of certain
products. Furthermore, the importance of stabilization and/or processing has
significantly increased
with the rural exodus, which has led to a distancing of
production from consumption areas.
The production of certain foods that still form the basis of our diet today
dates back several centuries or even millennia,
as in the case of bread, cheese
and wine for example. These products, particularly
those derived from
fermentation, were developed based on empirical observations, with no
knowledge of the raw materials or phenomena involved in their processing.
It was not until the work of Pasteur in the 19th Century that microorganisms
gained a key role in the development and processing of agricultural products.
The agri-food industry has undergone a major change over the past few
decades in order to better meet the quality requirements of consumers; while
traditional food is the result of a series of
increasingly understood and
controlled biological and physicochemical phenomena, this is not the case
for a number of new products designed to meet market expectations. These
Introduction written by Gérard B
RULÉ
.
xii Handbook of Food Science and Technology 3
products are the result of an assembly of various ingredients (Figure I.1), the
control of which is a real challenge for food technologists and engineers.
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