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Handbook of Drying of
Vegetables and Vegetable
Products
Advances in Drying Science and Technology
Series Editor:
Arun S. Mujumdar

PUBLISHED TITLES
Handbook of Drying of Vegetables and Vegetable Products
Min Zhang, Bhesh Bhandari, Zhongxiang Fang
Computational Fluid Dynamics Simulation of Spray Dryers:
An Engineer’s Guide
Meng Wai Woo
Advances in Heat Pump-Assisted Drying Technology
Vasile Minea
Handbook of Drying of
Vegetables and Vegetable
Products

Edited by
Min Zhang
Bhesh Bhandari
Zhongxiang Fang
MATLAB® and Simulink® are trademarks of The MathWorks, Inc. and are used with permission.
TheMathWorks does not warrant the accuracy of the text or exercises in this book. This book’s use or
discussion of MATLAB® and Simulink® software or related products does not constitute endorsement or
sponsorship by The MathWorks of a particular pedagogical approach or particular use of the MATLAB®
and Simulink® software.

CRC Press
Taylor & Francis Group
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© 2017 by Taylor & Francis Group, LLC


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No claim to original U.S. Government works

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Library of Congress Cataloging‑in‑Publication Data

Names: Zhang, Min (Food consultant), editor. | Bhandari, Bhesh, editor. |


Fang, Zhongxiang, editor.
Title: Handbook of drying of vegetables and vegetable products / [edited by]
Min Zhang, Bhesh Bhandari, Zhongxiang Fang.
Description: Boca Raton : Taylor & Francis, a CRC title, part of the Taylor &
Francis imprint, a member of the Taylor & Francis Group, the academic
division of T&F Informa, plc, [2017] | Series: Advances in drying science &
technology | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016059178 | ISBN 9781498753869 (hardback : acid-free paper)
Subjects: LCSH: Vegetables--Processing. | Dried vegetables.
Classification: LCC TP443.H33 2017 | DDC 664/.8--dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016059178

Visit the Taylor & Francis Web site at


http://www.taylorandfrancis.com

and the CRC Press Web site at


http://www.crcpress.com
Contents
Preface.......................................................................................................................ix
Editors........................................................................................................................xi
Contributors............................................................................................................ xiii

Section I  Drying Processes and Technologies

Chapter 1 Main Current Vegetable Drying Technology I: Hot Airflow


Drying and Related Combination Drying............................................. 3
Weiqiao Lv and Min Zhang

Chapter 2 Main Current Vegetable Drying Technology II: Freeze-Drying


and Related Combined Drying............................................................25
Xu Duan

Chapter 3 Highly Efficient Vegetable Drying Technology I: Microwave


and Radio Frequency Drying of Vegetables....................................... 45
Hao Jiang and Shaojin Wang

Chapter 4 Highly Efficient Vegetable Drying Technology II: Infrared


Radiation Drying and Related Combination Drying.......................... 65
Bengang Wu, Bei Wang, Haile Ma, Baoguo Xu,
and Zhongli Pan

Chapter 5 Highly Efficient Vegetable Drying Technologies III:


Ultrasound-Assisted Drying................................................................ 81
S. J. Kowalski, D. Mierzwa, and J. Szadzińska

Chapter 6 Smart Drying Technology for Vegetable Products........................... 117


Ya Su, Min Zhang, and Arun Sadashiv Mujumdar

Chapter 7 Foam-Mat Drying of Vegetables....................................................... 135


Regiane Victória de Barros Fernandes
and Diego Alvarenga Botrel

v
vi Contents

Section II  Drying of Specific Vegetable Products

Chapter 8 Drying of Herbs and Spices.............................................................. 157


Sachin V. Jangam and Arun Sadashiv Mujumdar

Chapter 9 Drying of Vegetable Snacks.............................................................. 173


Hao Jiang and Shaojin Wang

Chapter 10 Drying of Edible Flowers.................................................................. 195


Serkan Boyar, Erkan Dikmen, and Sabri Erbaş

Chapter 11 Drying of Mushrooms....................................................................... 235


Xin Jin

Section III  Changes in Properties


during Vegetable Drying
Chapter 12 Pigments and Nutrients during Vegetable Drying Processes,
Dried Products Storage, and Their Associated Color Changes........ 257
Barbara Sturm and Oliver Hensel

Chapter 13 Instant Controlled Pressure Drop as a Process of Texturing/


Sterilizing Vegetables, Improving upon Conventional Drying
Methods............................................................................................. 279
Karim Allaf, Tamara Allaf, Sabah Mounir, and Farid Zerrouq

Chapter 14 Aroma Aspects of Fresh and Dried Vegetables................................ 317


Narendra Narain, Gomathi Rajkumar, Maria Terezinha
Santos Leite Neta, Romy Gleyse Chagas Barros,
Saravanan Shanmugam, Marina Denadai, and Arun Sadashiv
Mujumdar
Contents vii

Section IV Others (Modeling, Measurements,


Packaging, and Safety of Dried
Vegetables and Vegetable Products)

Chapter 15 Vegetable Dryer Modeling................................................................ 349


Robert H. Driscoll and George Srzednicki

Chapter 16 Numerical Modeling of Morphological Changes of Food


Plant Materials during Drying.......................................................... 387
H. C. P. Karunasena and Wijitha Senadeera

Chapter 17 Nondestructive Measurement of Quality Parameters of


Vegetables during Drying by Optical Sensing Technology.............. 429
Min Huang and Qibing Zhu

Chapter 18 Computer Vision and Its Applications for Drying of Vegetables........ 455
Alex Martynenko

Chapter 19 Novel Packaging of Dried Vegetable Products................................. 489


Huizhi Chen and Min Zhang

Chapter 20 Microbiology and Safety of Dried Vegetables.................................. 507


Wunwisa Krasaekoopt

Index....................................................................................................................... 525
Preface
Drying of vegetables and vegetable products is very important in many develop-
ing countries, such as China, Brazil, India, and Thailand, as this can reduce the
waste of fresh produce since consumption is usually less than production in a given
period, increase product value and job opportunities, and provide varieties of veg-
etable products to the market. This is also important in developed countries as
consumers demand high-quality dried vegetables for both convenience and health
benefits.
According to the data provided by the Food and Agriculture Organization
of the United Nations, most of the vegetables in the world are produced by the
developing countries. China alone produces about half of the world’s vegetables.
Unfortunately, the vegetable processing technology, including drying technology,
is developing slowly. The aim of this handbook is to act as a handy tool for R&D
researchers in the field of vegetable drying, a textbook for undergraduate and post-
graduate students in universities, and a reference book for researchers in relevant
fields, including agricultural engineering and chemical engineering. Twenty chap-
ters are included in this book, and they are authored by experts from 12 different
countries, representing the current global technologies and industrial status in this
specific area.
The book comprises of four main sections: Drying Processes and Technologies,
Drying of Specific Vegetable Products, Changes in Properties during Vegetable
Drying, and Others (Modeling, Measurements, Packaging, and Safety of Dried
Vegetables and Vegetable Products).
The actual contents of this handbook include: Main current vegetable drying
technologies in hot air and freeze drying, and their combinations; Highly efficient
vegetable drying technologies in microwave drying, radio frequency drying, infra-
red radiation drying, ultrasound assisted drying and their combinations; Smart dry-
ing and foam-mat drying; Drying of specific vegetable products like herbs, spices,
vegetable snacks, edible flowers, and mushrooms; Properties or quality changes in
pigments and nutrients, texture and aroma changes during drying; Modeling of dryer
and microstructural and morphological changes during drying; Nondestructive
measurement by optical sensing technology and by computer vision image analy-
sis for vegetable drying; Novel package and microbiology safety of dried vegetable
products.
Many research papers have been and are being published on these topics, indicat-
ing continuing interests in vegetable drying research and development in the indus-
try. We hope this comprehensive handbook, which provides updated information on
various aspects of vegetable and vegetable products drying, will be helpful for the
readers and researchers engaged in product research and development in food indus-
tries and for academics in research institutions and universities.

ix
x Preface

We acknowledge and thank all of the contributing authors for their hard work. We
would like to thank Prof Arun S. Mujumdar for his strong support and Dr Weiqiao
Lv for his efficient assistance in communication with chapter authors during editing
this book.

Min Zhang
Bhesh Bhandari
Zhongxiang Fang
Editors
Min Zhangperformed two periods of postdoctoral research from 1992 to 1997. He
is currently the key professor and PhD supervisor in the School of Food Science
and Technology, Jiangnan University. He is the director of R&D, Center of Food
Resource and Utilization Technology in Jiangnan University. His research areas
focus on the mechanism, technology, and engineering of processing and storing
fresh foods.
Professor Zhang has been approved as a master’s supervisor and has supervised
105 master’s students (of whom 96 graduated) since 1998. Since 2000, he has been
approved as a PhD supervisor and has supervised 42 PhDs (of whom 31 graduated).
Professor Zhang began to supervise postdoctoral researchers in 2004 and has super-
vised 6 postdocs. In 2003 and 2005, he was listed in Who’s Who in Science and
Engineering. In 2004, he was listed in the first batch of the National Personnel
Training Project of the New Century Bai-Qian-Wan Project. In 2006, he was listed
as a National Expert and was entitled to special government allowances. In 2005,
he was invited as the scientific adviser in the food science by the International
Foundation for Science (IFS). From 2007, he has been listed as early or late listed as
the editorial member of three SCI journals (Journal of Food Engineering, IF2.576;
Drying Technology, IF1.77; International Agrophysics, IF 1.142) and several domes-
tic journals, such as Journal of Food Science and Biotechnology, Journal of Food
Safety and Food Quality, and Drying Technology and Equipment. In August 2013, he
was appointed as an honorary professor in the field of food science by the University
of Queensland, Australia.
In recent years, Professor Zhang has actively promoted the industrialization of
new quality control technology in fresh food processing and preservation and has
established a longtime collaboration mechanism of Industry-Academia-Research
(joint research institute) with more than 10 large- and medium-sized domestic and
foreign food or equipment companies like Haitong Food Group Co. Ltd., PepsiCo
Food Co., and Jiahao Food Co., which created obvious economic benefits for the
enterprise.
Professor Zhang has published 26 monographs or translated books in national
presses and 10 English book chapters, edited one international conference proceed-
ings (English edition), and coedited one English academic book. He has published
more than 240 SCI international journal papers as a corresponding author. About
116 applied invention patents from his group (with him as the main inventor) have
already been authorized by the Chinese National Intellectual Property Bureau. He
has also applied for 11 international patents, including patents from Germany, Japan,
France, South Korea, and Switzerland. He was recognized as the fifth of the top ten
outstanding patent inventors in Jiangsu Province (China) in 2012. The projects carried
out by Professor Zhang have been granted more than 10 awards by government and
professional associations, including an award from the national government (second
prize for the National Scientific and Technological Progress Award, 2012), an award
from the government of Jiangsu Province (first prize for the Province Scientific and

xi
xii Editors

Technological Progress Award, 2009), two awards from China General Chamber
of Commerce (first prize for the National Commerce Scientific and Technological
Progress Award, 2009, 2011), an award from China National Light Industry Council
(first prize for the National Light Industry Scientific and Technological Progress Award,
2007), and an award from China National Food Industry Association (first prize for
the National Food Industry Scientific and Technological Progress Award, 2011).

Bhesh Bhandari has been associated with the University of Queensland for more
than 22 years. His research is mainly focused on food materials science, includ-
ing microencapsulation of food ingredients and glass transition–related issues in
food processing and product systems. Various microencapsulation processes, such
as spray drying, molecular encapsulation, cocrystallization, precipitation, and gel
entrapment, have been investigated by his research team. Professor Bhandari’s cur-
rent research focus has been to relate the nanostructure of food systems to their bulk
properties. He has developed a continuous method to produce microgel particles that
can be used to encapsulate various functional ingredients and pharmaceutical drugs.
He has performed a number of pioneering studies on the stickiness issues of food
powders encountered during drying and handling. Recently, he developed a patented
technique to produce an ethylene powder that can be used for fruit ripening as well
as control of other physiological functions in plants. Professor Bhandarihas authored
more than 200 papers, including 30 book chapters. He has coedited Food Materials
Science and Engineering and Handbook of Food Powders, which have been pub-
lished recently. Professor Bhandari is an editor of The Journal of Food Engineering.

Zhongxiang Fangearned bachelor (1993) and MPhil (2003) degrees in agricultural


processing and storage engineering at the China Agricultural University and a PhD
(2007) in food science at Jiangnan University, China. He was a lecturer at Zhejiang
University, China, from 2007 to 2009 and moved to Australia in 2009 as a post-
doctoral research fellow at the University of Queensland. Dr. Fang was appointed
as a Curtin Research Fellow in the Food Science and Technology Program, School
of Public Health, Curtin University, in 2012. From 2016, he worked as a lecturer
in food processing in the Faculty of Veterinary and Agricultural Sciences, The
University of Melbourne. Dr. Fanghas secured research funding of about 1.7 million
AUD, published more than 100 peer-reviewed papers, and has 9 patents. He has (co-)
supervised six PhD students and ten master’s students. He has served as a reviewer
for major j­ournals in associated fields. His research interests include the effect of
climate, environment, and food processing technology on food quality and safety;
antioxidant activity and metabolism of plant polyphenols; food processing technol-
ogy and food engineering; and encapsulation of food bioactives and bioactive films
in food coating and packaging.
Contributors
Karim Allaf Erkan Dikmen
Intensification of Industrial Department of Energy Systems
Eco-Processes Engineering
Laboratory of Engineering Science for Süleyman Demirel University
Environment Isparta, Turkey
University of La Rochelle
La Rochelle, France Robert H. Driscoll
Food Science and Technology Group
Tamara Allaf University of New South Wales
Director Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
ABCAR-DIC Process
La Rochelle, France Xu Duan
Food and Biology Engineering College
Romy Gleyse Chagas Barros Henan University of Science and
Laboratory of Flavor and Technology
Chromatographic Analysis Luoyang, Henan, People’s
Federal University of Sergipe Republic of China
São Cristóvão, Sergipe, Brazil
Sabri Erbaş
Diego Alvarenga Botrel Department of Field Crops
Department of Food Science Süleyman Demirel University
Federal University of Lavras Isparta, Turkey
Lavras, Minas Gerais, Brazil
Regiane Victória de Barros Fernandes
Serkan Boyar Department of Food Science
Department of Agricultural Machinery Federal University of Lavras
and Technologies Engineering Lavras, Minas Gerais, Brazil
Süleyman Demirel University
Isparta, Turkey Oliver Hensel
Department of Agricultural
Huizhi Chen Engineering
School of Food Science and University of Kassel
Technology Witzenhausen, Germany
Jiangnan University
Wuxi, Jiangsu, People’s Republic of Min Huang
China Key Laboratory of Advanced Process
Control for Light Industry
Marina Denadai Jiangnan University
Laboratory of Flavor and Wuxi, Jiangsu, People’s Republic of
Chromatographic Analysis China
Federal University of Sergipe
São Cristóvão, Sergipe, Brazil

xiii
xiv Contributors

Sachin V. Jangam Haile Ma


Department of Chemical and School of Food and Biological
Biomolecular Engineering Engineering
National University of Singapore Jiangsu University
Singapore Zhenjiang, Jiangsu, People’s Republic
of China
Hao Jiang
College of Food Science and Alex Martynenko
Engineering Department of Engineering
Northwest A&F University Dalhousie University
Yangling, Shaanxi, People’s Republic Truro, Nova Scotia, Canada
of China
D. Mierzwa
Xin Jin Institute of Technology and Chemical
Suzhou Key Laboratory of Green Engineering
Chemical Engineering Poznań University of Technology
Soochow University Poznań, Poland
Suzhou, Jiangsu, People’s Republic of
China Sabah Mounir
Food Science Department
H. C. P. Karunasena Zagazig University
Department of Mechanical and Zagazig, Egypt
Manufacturing Engineering
and
University of Ruhuna
Galle, Sri Lanka Intensification of Industrial
Eco-Processes
S. J. Kowalski Laboratory of Engineering Science for
Institute of Technology and Chemical Environment (LaSIE)
Engineering University of La Rochelle
Poznań University of Technology La Rochelle, France
Poznań, Poland
Arun Sadashiv Mujumdar
Wunwisa Krasaekoopt Department of Bioresource
Faculty of Biotechnology Engineering
Assumption University McGill University
Hua Mak, Bangkok, Thailand Montreal, Quebec, Canada

Weiqiao Lv Narendra Narain


School of Food Science and Technology Laboratory of Flavor and
Jiangnan University Chromatographic Analysis
Wuxi, Jiangsu, People’s Republic of Federal University of Sergipe
China São Cristóvão, Sergipe, Brazil
Contributors xv

Maria Terezinha Santos George Srzednicki


Leite Neta Food Science and Technology Group
Laboratory of Flavor and University of New South Wales
Chromatographic Analysis Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
Federal University of Sergipe
São Cristóvão, Sergipe, Brazil Barbara Sturm
Department of Agricultural
Zhongli Pan Engineering
School of Food and Biological University of Kassel
Engineering Witzenhausen, Germany
Jiangsu University
Zhenjiang, Jiangsu, People’s Republic Ya Su
of China School of Food Science and Technology
Jiangnan University
and
Wuxi, Jiangsu, People’s Republic of
Healthy Processed Foods Research China
Unit
West Regional Research Center, J. Szadzińska
USDA-ARS Institute of Technology and Chemical
Albany, California Engineering
Poznań University of Technology
and
Poznań, Poland
Department of Biological and
Agricultural Engineering Bei Wang
University of California, Davis School of Food and Biological
Davis, California Engineering
Jiangsu University
Gomathi Rajkumar Zhenjiang, Jiangsu, People’s Republic
Laboratory of Flavor and of China
Chromatographic Analysis
Federal University of Sergipe Shaojin Wang
São Cristóvão, Sergipe, Brazil College of Mechanical and Electronic
Engineering
Wijitha Senadeera Northwest A&F University
School of Mechanical and Electrical Yangling, Shaanxi, People’s Republic
Engineering of China
University of Southern Queensland
Springfield, Queensland, Australia Bengang Wu
School of Food and Biological
Saravanan Shanmugam Engineering
Department of Pharmacy Jiangsu University
Federal University of Sergipe Zhenjiang, Jiangsu, People’s Republic
São Cristóvão, Sergipe, Brazil of China
xvi Contributors

Baoguo Xu Min Zhang


School of Food and Biological School of Food Science and
Engineering Technology
Jiangsu University Jiangnan University
Zhenjiang, Jiangsu, People’s Republic Wuxi, Jiangsu, People’s Republic of
of China China

Farid Zerrouq Qibing Zhu


Research Group QHSE-RG of LCME Key Laboratory of Advanced Process
Laboratory Control for Light Industry
Sidi Mohamed Ben Abdellah Jiangnan University
University Wuxi, Jiangsu, People’s Republic of
Fez, Morocco China
Section I
Drying Processes and
Technologies
1 Main Current Vegetable
Drying Technology I
Hot Airflow Drying and
Related Combination Drying
Weiqiao Lv and Min Zhang
Jiangnan University

CONTENTS
1.1 I ntroduction.......................................................................................................3
1.2 Characteristics of Hot Airflow Drying..............................................................4
1.2.1 Heat and Mass Transfer.........................................................................4
1.2.2 Drying Quality Evaluation....................................................................6
1.2.3 Energy Consumption.............................................................................6
1.3 Vegetable AD Process.......................................................................................7
1.3.1 Drying Process and Main Equipment...................................................7
1.3.2 Box-Type Vegetable Dryer.....................................................................8
1.3.3 Multilayer AD Vegetable Dryer.............................................................9
1.3.4 Mesh Belt AD Dryer..............................................................................9
1.3.5 Fluidized Bed Dryer............................................................................ 10
1.4 AD-Related Combination Drying................................................................... 11
1.4.1 AD Combined with Microwave........................................................... 11
1.4.2 AD Combined with Heat Pump........................................................... 15
1.4.3 AD Combined with Infrared Drying................................................... 16
1.4.4 AD Combined with RF........................................................................ 17
1.5 Assessment of Drying Factors in an AD Process............................................ 17
1.5.1 Effect of Pretreatment.......................................................................... 17
1.5.2 Effect of Water State............................................................................ 19
1.5.3 Effect of Airflow..................................................................................20
1.5.4 Effect of Vegetable Varieties...............................................................20
1.6 Concluding Remarks.......................................................................................20
References................................................................................................................. 21

1.1 INTRODUCTION
Hot airflow drying (AD) is a traditional drying method in the vegetable dehydration
industry, and the products are always called AD vegetables (Zhang and Chen 2007).

3
4 Handbook of Drying of Vegetables and Vegetable Products

Because the moisture content of most fresh vegetables is more than 80%, they are
regarded as highly perishable commodities (Sagar and Kumar 2010). Through the
AD process, the vegetables are dried to enhance storage stability, minimize packag-
ing requirement, and reduce transport cost. Currently, the AD process is the main
drying method used in vegetable dehydration. In this process, the pretreated vegeta-
bles are subjected to hot airflow of 50°C–90°C (Demiray et al. 2013; Wu et al. 2015).
Heat can be transferred from hot air to the vegetables, and when the heat is absorbed
by the materials, two types of moisture diffusion occur. One process is external dif-
fusion, in which moisture moves from the material surface to the dry medium. The
other process is internal diffusion, in which the internal moisture moves to the mate-
rial surface. These two diffusion processes develop at the same time until the mois-
ture content decreases to the level where the materials can be stored safely (Cheng
et al. 2015; Srikiatden and Roberts 2006). Because the materials in the hot airflow
environment are exposed to oxygen and the temperature is always higher than 50°C,
some biochemical reactions happen, such as oxidation of phenolic compounds cata-
lyzed by oxidase, vitamin loss, etc. To improve the retention rate of nutrients, the
physiological activity of enzymes should be inhibited by blanching or hot steam
pretreatment. In practice, blanching or hot steam temperature, pretreating time, air-
flow speed, drying temperature, and drying time are critical factors that affect the
nutrient retention and drying quality of the vegetables.
With the development of the drying industry, novel drying technology and pro-
cesses have been developed recently. For example, microwave drying (MD), infrared
drying, vacuum freeze-drying, and some combined drying technologies have been
widely used in vegetable dehydration. However, as the main process in vegetable
dehydration, AD is a well-established technology owing to its easily available equip-
ment and facilities.
In addition, the AD process dries the surface of the materials first, which has an
advantage in drying products with high moisture and high sugar content, such as
tomatoes (Demiray et al. 2013) and pumpkins (Hashim et al. 2014). It is expected
that the traditional method of the AD process will still be widely used for vegetable
dehydration in the future. Therefore, the AD process and other combined drying
technologies need to be studied further.

1.2 CHARACTERISTICS OF HOT AIRFLOW DRYING


1.2.1 Heat and Mass Transfer
In an AD process, heat and moisture transfer between vegetable materials and hot
air occur simultaneously. Heat is transferred from hot air to the material surfaces,
and then moves to the interior of the materials. The internal moisture of the materi-
als diffuse to the surface and then evaporate into the environment. The driving force
of heat transfer is the temperature difference, and the driving force of mass transfer
is the moisture difference or the partial pressure difference of water vapor. The two
processes have a close relationship, but in opposite directions. Compared with MD,
the drying resistance is more in the AD process. However, this is an advantage for
some vegetables with high moisture and sugar content in which the surface layer
Main Current Vegetable Drying Technology I 5

Insulation layer

Heat medium
temperature

Central
Room
temperature
temperature

Dry layer

Heat medium
temperature
1 1

2 2

3 3
Room
temperature

Insulation layer

FIGURE 1.1 Model schematic drawing of AD process (left) and microwave drying process
(right). 1, Direction of temperature gradient; 2, direction of heat conduction; 3, direction of
moisture migration.

damage and adhesion could be avoided. The heat and water transfer diagram of AD
and MD are shown in Figure 1.1.
In the AD process, the water on the surface of materials is dried by hot airflow.
When the moisture content in the external part is lower than that in the internal
part, difference occurs in the moisture concentration. Because of this, water diffuses
from the region of high moisture content to the region of low moisture content. At
the same time, the temperature in the external part is higher than that in the internal
part, thus creating temperature difference. Because they occur in opposite direc-
tions, the two mechanisms are barrier factors to each other. When there is a moisture
difference, moisture will be transferred to the surface; when there is a temperature
difference, moisture will move in direction of the heat flow, in which condition the
materials’ drying speed becomes slow, or even stops, and always results in a hard
surface on the surface. This phenomenon is mainly caused by very high tempera-
ture and fast airflow speed. Sometimes, this phenomenon is required to protect the
shape of the vegetables, especially in the AD process combined with fluidized bed or
spouted bed drying for vegetables with high moisture and high sugar content. Their
surface layer can be dried first, and cannot be adhered together. This is the advantage
of AD, more so for the drying of tomatoes, pumpkins, etc.
6 Handbook of Drying of Vegetables and Vegetable Products

1.2.2 Drying Quality Evaluation


Consumers have certain expectations for the product quality of dehydrated vegeta-
bles, especially with regard to their visual appearance. They always tend to associate
food product color and other visual properties with taste, hygiene, shelf life, and
nutritional value; therefore, color and shape are regarded as the primary criteria in
terms of consumer acceptance. In general, parameters such as temperature, mass of
the materials, and airflow speed can be adjusted in the drying process, and thus the
color and shape can be maintained within acceptable levels after drying.
Color is always measured by color difference meters. The L*, a*, b* values of
dehydrated vegetables are determined, where L* (whiteness/darkness) is the light-
ness index and a* (redness/greenness) and b* (yellowness/blueness) are the satu-
ration index (Chin and Law 2010; Chua et al. 2001). Sometimes, the color of the
vegetables changes significantly in different detecting spots. In this case, fresh sam-
ples are always smashed into slurry and dried samples ground to powders so that
color measurement can be conducted uniformly (Ding et al. 2012).
In the AD process, the temperature gradient direction is opposite to the direction
of moisture migration. Therefore, if the temperature is high, the surface layer easily
becomes hard, and this may lead to size shrink. Moreover, the nutrition loss of the
vegetables is more under this condition. However, if the temperature is too low, the
drying efficiency decreases, and some biological reactions occurring at high mois-
ture content may result in low-quality products. In general, the AD process has a
long drying time and slow moisture evaporation rate. As the water molecules migrate
slowly, the molecular groups of the dry matter are not stimulated by a high-efficiency
physical field, and compared with MD, the microstructure could be protected better
in AD vegetables (Ding et al. 2012). Rehydration ability is another critical index to
evaluate the quality of the dehydrated vegetables and is closely related to the micro-
structure of the products (Rahman 2003).

1.2.3 Energy Consumption
In the production of dehydrated vegetables, minimizing drying cost is one of the most
highly regarded criteria. However, conditions that produce high-quality products
using minimal costs are always difficult to achieve, and the optimum requirements
of heat and mass transfer do not necessarily match with those for optimum quality. In
terms of energy efficiency, reducing/increasing the temperature for the whole drying
process is not very effective. In general, the drying parameters frequently vary at dif-
ferent stages with the decreasing moisture content in the AD process. The hot airflow
can be recycled from the outlet air, and thus the energy efficiency can be improved.
However, if the moisture content in the recycled hot air is too high, the water in the
vegetables cannot be evaporated in time because of the saturated vapor pressure, and
thus the drying efficiency could be reduced.
In the AD process, the vegetable materials may be dried with the hot air flow-
ing on the surface, but in most cases the hot air flows through the entire material
layer. A common feature of these dryers is their high energy consumption. There
is worldwide concern over global warming, which is attributed to greenhouse gases
Main Current Vegetable Drying Technology I 7

produced by the combustion of fossil fuels, and there is increasing pressure to reduce
energy consumption. As consumption of energy in the vegetable dehydration indus-
try is high, highly energy efficient processes and equipment should be developed.

1.3 VEGETABLE AD PROCESS
1.3.1 Drying Process and Main Equipment
Dehydration of vegetables is not only helpful for storage and transport but also has
many other benefits like prepared food or leisure food. Some dehydrated vegetables
need to be rehydrated before cooking—these belong to the class of prepared food
and include potatoes, cabbage, etc. Some dehydrated vegetables can be eaten as lei-
sure food, such as edamame and carrot sticks, and these need to be blanched for a
longer time before drying. In general, fresh vegetables can be processed to dehy-
drated products in the harvest season. With an efficient drying process, the dehy-
drated vegetables can maintain good color and nutrition at room temperature, which
is welcomed by consumers. The drying procedures in the AD process include five
steps as follows:

1. Raw material selection


Fresh vegetables selected for industrial drying should be free of disease and
insect pests. Some vegetables, such as pumpkin and wax gourd, have a hard
and waxy skin that affect moisture diffusion during drying, and therefore
this skin needs to be removed before processing.
2. Cutting and blanching
The selected raw materials should be cut into slices, dices, or strips accord-
ing to the product requirements. The cut vegetables are blanched in boiling
water for 1–3 min or using hot steam for a few seconds to deactivate the
oxidative enzyme activities. However, for some heat-sensitive vegetables,
such as oyster mushroom and spinach, blanching is not most of the time
necessary.
3. Cooling and draining
The blanched vegetable slices, dices, or strips should be cooled in cold water.
It is better to use flow water so that the material temperature can be decreased
faster. The prepared materials can be drained by air or by a centrifugal method.
4. Hot-air drying
According to the varieties and characteristics of the vegetables, drying
­temperature, airflow speed, and drying time can be set at different levels.
In the AD process, the materials are placed in a drying house or in a hot
airflow-drying machine. In the drying house, the materials move in one
layer, and the hot air flows in the backward direction. Meanwhile, the mate-
rials can also be placed in two layers or multilayers, and the airflow can be
set to forward and backward directions for different layers. In most cases,
the temperature of the drying house is about 50°C. The drying machine
is always different from the drying house; it has a small volume and the
temperature can be adjusted more precisely. To improve energy efficiency,
8 Handbook of Drying of Vegetables and Vegetable Products

the materials are always placed in multilayers, and thus the hot air with
unsaturated water vapor can be recycled. Hot airflow temperature is gener-
ally controlled and maintained between 50°C and 90°C.
5. Packaging
Dehydrated vegetables should be of good quality with regard to color,
shape, rehydration ability, nutrition content, etc. and should also meet the
hygiene requirements. The dehydrated vegetables can be packed in plastic
bags and sealed.

At present, some different types of AD equipment include tunnel-type dryer, box-


type dryer, conveyor dryer, fluidized bed dryer, drying room, etc. The main factors
influencing AD quality are the hot-air temperature, airflow speed, and thickness
of the materials. Some common hot AD equipment are discussed in the following
sections.

1.3.2 Box-Type Vegetable Dryer


As the main AD equipment, the box-type vegetable dryer is widely used in the indus-
try. It has a simple structure, which is shown in Figure 1.2. In this equipment, the
vegetables are dried in the box via the hot air from the air inlet. In practice, the dry-
ing processes are organized by different stages under different temperatures. With
the decrease in mass, the materials in different boxes can be put together. The box-
type vegetable dryer has low equipment investment and ensures quality drying. The
heat source can be steam, coal, fuel, or other combined energy sources, and it is
economical and suitable for use in small-scale industry processing. However, the
energy efficiency is low when the heat from the wet air passing though the materials
is exhausted. As the hot air passes over the materials only once, the airflow is much
drier than that in the recycled process. It is more suitable for vegetables with low
moisture content and leafy vegetables, such as peanuts, green beans, cabbage, etc. In
order to improve the energy efficiency, multilayer AD vegetable dryers and mesh belt
AD equipment are also widely used for vegetable dehydration.

FIGURE 1.2 Box-type vegetable dryer.


Main Current Vegetable Drying Technology I 9

FIGURE 1.3 Multilayer AD vegetable dryer. 1, Humid-air outlet; 2, circulating centrifuge;


3, steam heater.

1.3.3 Multilayer AD Vegetable Dryer


A multilayer AD vegetable dryer has more than one layer of materials, and a sche-
matic structure is shown in Figure 1.3. In this equipment, hot airflow passes through
three layers of prepared vegetables. The heat due to this process can be absorbed
three times in one cycle. A part of the used hot air is exhausted, but most of the used
hot air can be pumped to the steam heater again, for reuse in the next cycle. As steam
can carry more heat, the reused hot air with some moisture content is enough to
make the water evaporate; thus, the multilayer AD vegetable dryer has higher drying
efficiency than the box-type dryer.
However, a disadvantage of this dryer is that the drying speed of the materials in
different layers vary. Hot air is not only the carrier of heat but also the carrier of water
in vegetables. The materials in the lower layer are easy to dry, but the upper-layer mate-
rials that are dried at low temperature and high moisture content have a low drying
speed. Therefore, multilayer AD vegetable dryers cannot be installed with too many
layers. However, different recycle systems can be designed, and every recycle system
can have no more than three layers. Figure 1.3 shows two recycle systems in a dryer,
and each system has three layers, so drying uniformity can be achieved.

1.3.4 Mesh Belt AD Dryer


Vegetable drying in a multilayer AD vegetable dryer is still a batch operation. So,
mesh belt AD equipment have been developed to meet the requirements of a continu-
ous drying process. The adjacent conveyor belts have opposite moving directions,
and the materials can be conveyed from the upper layer to the lower layer, where the
10 Handbook of Drying of Vegetables and Vegetable Products

3 4

7 6 5
1

FIGURE 1.4 Mesh belt AD equipment. 1, Feed hopper; 2, automatic feeding machine;
3, moisture outlet pipe; 4, moisture pumping fan; 5, discharge port; 6, air-regulating plate;
7, hot air blower.

hot air passes through the mesh belts from the bottom to the top. The drying process
and the dryer structure are shown in Figure 1.4.
In mesh belt AD equipment, the pretreated materials are automatically fed on the
top. With the drying process, the materials move to the lower conveyor belt. The
materials with high moisture content are dried in the upper layers, where the moisture
content of the hot air is also high; thus, more heat can be transmitted to the materi-
als and the drying efficiency can be improved. At the same time, materials with low
moisture content moving in the lower layers will be dried by low moisture content but
high temperature hot air, and this moisture concentration and temperature difference
also have a positive effect on the AD process. Air-regulating plates are installed at the
bottom of the drying chamber, where the hot air enters; thus, the uniformity of airflow
in different parts can be adjusted. Because the utilization efficiency of hot air is rela-
tively high, the used air can be exhausted directly. In general, mesh belt AD equip-
ment has not only achieved continuous drying but also has a high drying efficiency.

1.3.5 Fluidized Bed Dryer


In a typical fluidized bed drying system, hot air flows through the materials quickly,
and the fluidized bed is connected with a vibrating motor (Figure 1.5). With the
action of mechanical vibration and hot airflow, the weight of the materials can be
balanced in a fluidized state. Fluidized drying is always regarded as one of the best
AD processes for granular materials, and its has the following advantages:

1. Because the airflow with high temperature and low moisture content can
contact with granular materials sufficiently, and most of the hot airflow can
be recycled, the drying rate and energy efficiency are high.
2. The equipment is relatively simple, requires low capital investment, and is
easy to maintain.
Main Current Vegetable Drying Technology I 11

1
5

3
8
7

2 4

FIGURE 1.5 Hot airflow fluidized bed dryer. 1, Raw materials; 2, filter; 3, fan; 4, heat
changer; 5, cyclone separator; 6, exhaust fan; 7, vibrator motor; 8, spring.

3. The drying process is easy to control, and the vegetable materials’ drying
uniformity is stable. It is applied in drying most of the granular vegetables,
such as potato dices, apple dices, carrot dices, etc.

1.4 AD-RELATED COMBINATION DRYING


At present, the AD process is the main method used in vegetable dehydration. Owing
to high drying temperature and long drying time, the AD product quality including
color, texture, flavor, and nutrition could be altered significantly. In addition, other high-­
efficiency physical fields such as microwave, infrared, and radio frequency (RF) drying
have their own limitations. It is much difficult to obtain dehydrated vegetables from sin-
gle high-efficiency physical field drying in industry. Therefore, the combination of AD
with these new drying techniques has the potential to not only improve the product qual-
ity but also to save energy, and so it is widely applied in the vegetable drying industry.

1.4.1 AD Combined with Microwave


In vegetable dehydration, AD has the characteristics of long drying time, high
energy consumption, and relatively large amount of nutritional loss. MD has many
advantages, such as strong penetrability, high drying efficiency, low nutrition loss,
etc. However, because of the cavity’s reflection and different penetration depth in
vegetable materials, uneven drying and local burn are common problems in MD
(Clark and Sutton 1996; Drouzas and Schubert 1996).
12 Handbook of Drying of Vegetables and Vegetable Products

Ginger is a traditional herbal medicine and a typical vegetable used as a condi-


ment in Asian countries. Because the dehydration process not only extends ginger’s
storage time but also provides good quality and flavor, the dehydrated ginger slices
have a huge market value and vast development space (Yudthavorasit et al. 2014). An
experiment has been completed to compare the drying uniformity of ginger slices
with MD and AD, and the dehydrated samples are shown in Figure 1.6.
The MD process leads to uneven heating with obvious local burns (Figure 1.6),
and the AD product leads to uniform yellow color with no brown burns. The AD
product is better than the MD product; however, AD takes a longer time, and in the
final stage the energy efficiency is lower.
While studying the different drying processes on lettuce slices, Roknul et al.
reported that the product quality of hot air-assisted RF drying was the best, when
compared with AD and MD methods. The result indicates that microwave has the
disadvantage of uneven drying, which was in agreement with the results reported for
microwave and hot-air dehydration of ginger slices.
In general, the burn phenomenon in MD always occurs at the final drying stage.
Controlling the quality of products and final moisture content is another research
focus of the process. Different drying methods have a different influence on the
­ginger tissue structure, which affect products’ rehydration capability (Bondaruk
et al. 2007; Han et al. 2010). It was reported that the microstructure and flavor of
dehydrated ginger slices (dehydrated by AD and MD) was significantly different
(Lv 2015).
On one hand, the microstructure of AD dehydrated ginger was maintained bet-
ter than the ginger from the MD process. In the AD process, moisture migrating
speed is slow when the water molecules pass through the cell wall and evaporate.
The ­tissue structural damage is minimized and the cell framework and the starch
granules are clearly visible. However, for the MD process, certain polar molecule

(a) (b)

FIGURE 1.6 Dehydrated ginger slices by MD and AD processes. (a) MD with the micro-
wave power of 1.8 W/g. (b) AD with the hot airflow at 75°C.
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
Where that Æaean isle forgets the main....

or the yellow sands of Prospero’s island where the elves curtsy, kiss
and dance, or Sindbad’s cave, or those others “measureless to man”
rushed through by Alph the sacred river to where we

see the children sport upon the shore,


And hear the mighty waters rolling evermore.

IV
No: I am not talking fantastically at all. Let us be sober-serious,
corrugating our brows upon history: and at once see that these
Cambridge men of Thackeray’s generation—FitzGerald (to whom he
was “old Thack”), Tennyson, Brookfield, Monckton Milnes, Kinglake
—all with the exception of Arthur Hallam (whom I sadly suspect to
have been something of a prig) cultivated high fooling and carried it
to the nth power as a fine art. Life, in that Victorian era of peace
between wars, was no lull of lotus-eating for them—the England of
Carlyle, Newman, Ruskin admitted no lull of the young mind—but a
high-spirited hilarious game. As one of them, Milnes, wrote of “The
Men of Old”:

They went about their gravest deeds


As noble boys at play.

A plenty of English writers—some of them accounted highly serious


writers—had indulged in what I may call similar “larks” before them.
Swift, for example, has a glorious sense of the high-nonsensical;
Cowper has it, of course. I regret to say that I even suspect Crabbe.
Canning had it—take, for example, a single stage-direction in The
Rovers:

Several soldiers cross the stage wearily, as if returning from


the Thirty Years’ War.

Lamb of course had it; and in his letters will carry it to a delirium in
excelsis. But this Cambridge group would seem to have shared and
practised it as a form, an exercise, in their free-masonry. Take for a
single instance James Spedding’s forehead. James Spedding,
afterwards learned editor of Bacon, and a butt in that profane set,
had a brow severe and high, of the sort (you know) that tells of moral
virtue with just a hint of premature baldness. It was very smooth; it
rose to a scalp all but conical. His admiring friends elected to call it
Alpine. Now hear FitzGerald upon it, in a letter:

That portrait of Spedding, for instance, which Lawrence has


given me: not swords, nor cannon, nor all the Bulls of Bashan
butting at it, could, I feel sure, discompose that venerable
forehead. No wonder that no hair can grow at such an altitude:
no wonder his view of Bacon’s virtue is so rarefied that the
common consciences of men cannot endure it. Thackeray and I
occasionally amuse ourselves with the idea of Spedding’s
forehead: we find it somehow or other in all things, just peering
out of all things: you see it in a milestone, Thackeray says. He
also draws the forehead rising with a sober light over Mont
Blanc, and reflected in the lake of Geneva. The forehead is at
present in Pembrokeshire, I believe: or Glamorganshire: or
Monmouthshire: it is hard to say which. It has gone to spend its
Christmas there.

And later, May 22, 1842:

You have of course read the account of Spedding’s forehead


landing in America. English sailors hail it in the Channel,
mistaking it for Beachy Head.
I have quoted this just to enforce my argument that, to understand
Thackeray’s work, you must understand just what kind of a man he
was in his upbringing and the way of his early friendships. And when
I add that his gift for nursery folly was expended upon a widowed
and desolate home—on a home from which his heart drove him to
flee, no matter how ambitiously he rebuilt and adorned it, to scribble
his novels on Club paper or in hotels, you may get (I hope) a little
closer to understanding his generous, but bitter and always sad
heart.

V
I must dwell on another point, too. The Thackerays (or
Thackwras—which I suppose to be another form of Dockwras) had
for some generations prospered and multiplied as Anglo-Indians in
the service of the old East India Company. Their tombs are thick in
the old graveyard of Calcutta, and I would refer anyone who would
ponder their epitaphs, or is interested in the stock from which
Thackeray sprang, to a little book by the late Sir William Hunter
entitled The Thackerays in India and some Calcutta Graves (Henry
Frowde, London: 1897). Thackeray himself was born at Calcutta on
the 18th of July, 1811, and, according to the sad fate of Anglo-Indian
children, was shipped home to England at the age of five, just as
Clive Newcome is shipped home in the novel; and when he pictured
the sad figure of Colonel Newcome tottering back up the ghaut, or
river-stairs, Thackeray drew what his own boyish eyes had seen and
his small heart suffered. Turn to the “Roundabout Paper” On Letts’s
Diary and you will read concerning that parting:

I wrote this, remembering in long, long distant days, such a


ghaut, or river-stair, at Calcutta, and a day when down those
steps, to a boat which was in waiting, came two children, whose
mothers remained on the shore. One of those ladies was never
to see her boy more.... We were first cousins; had been little
playmates and friends from the time of our birth; and the first
house in London to which I was taken was that of our aunt, the
mother of his Honour the Member of Council.

This young cousin and playmate returned in time, as Thackeray


never did, to the shore they were leaving; and died Sir Richmond
Shakespeare (no vile nomen!), Agent to the Governor-General for
Central India. The news of his death gave occasion to the tender
little essay from which I have been quoting.
On the passage their ship touched at St. Helena, and their black
servant took them a long walk over rocks and hills “until we reached
a garden, where we saw a man walking. ‘That’s he,’ said the black
man: ‘that is Bonaparte! He eats three sheep every day, and all the
little children he can lay hands upon.’”—After which terrible vision no
doubt the youngsters resumed their Odyssey—as Homer would put
it—

ἀκαχήμενοι ἦτορ,
ἄσμενοι ἐκ θανάτοιο.

“Stricken at heart yet rejoicing to have escaped perdition.” They


reached London to find it plunged in mourning (and, for many
reasons, in very genuine mourning) by the death of the Princess
Charlotte: and young Thackeray proceeded to Chiswick, to the
charge and care of his aunt Mrs. Ritchie. One day she caught the
child trying on his uncle’s large hat, and, finding to her alarm that it
accurately fitted him, swept him off to the fashionable physician, Sir
Charles Clark: “Reassure yourself, madam,” the doctor is reported
as saying: “he has, to be sure, an abnormal head; but I think there’s
something in it.” He was put to school first at a young gentlemen’s
academy at Chiswick, maybe next door to Miss Pinkerton’s
Seminary for Young Ladies through the portals of which (if you
remember, and into the garden) Miss Rebecca Sharp hurled back
her “leaving copy” of Dr. Johnson’s “Dixonary.” The master would
seem to have been a Dr. Swishtail, compounded of negligence and
tyranny, as so many “private schoolmasters” chose to be even to
days of my own experience. But here is the child’s first letter, dated
February 18, 1818, to his mother in India and composed in a round
hand between ruled lines:

My dear Mama—I hope you are quite well. I have given my


dear Grandmama a kiss. My aunt Ritchie is very good to me. I
like Chiswick, there are so many good boys to play with. St.
James’s Park is a very nice place. St. Paul’s Church, too, I like
very much. It is a finer place than I expected. I hope Captain
Smyth is well: Give my love to him and tell him he must bring
you home to your affectionate little son.
William Thackeray.

The separating sea was wide: but what a plucky little letter!

VI
I shall lay stress on it for a moment because, as it seems to me,
if we read between the childish lines, they not only evince the pluck
of the child, and not only breathe a waft of the infinite pathos of
English children, Indian born: but because I hold that no one who
would understand Thackeray can afford to forget that he was of
Anglo-Indian stock, bone and marrow.
Now I want, avoiding so much of offence as I may, to say a word
or two (and these only as a groping through private experience, to
illustrate Thackeray) about the retired Anglo-Indian as he has come
within the range of a long experience at an English town by the
seashore. On the whole I know of no human being more typically
pathetic. His retirement may be happier in some places such as
Cheltenham, where he has a Club in which he can meet old Indian
cronies or men from “the other side,” and tell stories and discuss the
only politics which interest them. But in any odd angle of this capital
yet most insular isle his isolation is horrible and fatal. Compared with
it, the sorrows of a British child “sent home” (as conveyed, and to the
very heart, in Mr. Kipling’s Wee Willie Winkie, for example) are
tragically insignificant. Youth is elastic and can recover. But this
grown man, through the “long, long Indian days,” has toiled and
supported himself upon a hope, to end in England with fishing or
shooting and a share of that happy hospitality which (God knows) he
has earned.
What happens? The domestic servant question (always with us),
cold rooms, dinner-parties at which stories about Allahabad are
listened to patiently by ladies who confuse it with Lahore, polite men
who suggest a game of “snooker pool” as a relief, hoping for not too
many anecdotes in the course of it. And for this your friend and his
admirable wife have been nursing, feeding themselves on promise
for, maybe, thirty years and more, all the time and day after day—
there lies the tragedy—dutifully giving all their best, for England, in
confidence of its reward.
It is not altogether our fault. It is certainly not our fault that the
partridges do not rise on the stubble or the salmon leap up and over
the dams in such numbers as the repatriated fondly remember. To
advise a lady accustomed to many Indian servants upon tact with a
couple or three of English ones—post-War too—is (as Sir Thomas
Browne might say) to bid her sleep in Epicurus his faith, and
reacclimatise her notion. But, to be short, they talk to us politics
which have no basis discoverable in this country.
Yet, withal, they are so noble! So simple in dignity! Far astray
from any path of progress as we may think him; insane as we may
deem his demand to rule, unreasonable his lament over the lost
England of his youth which for so long he has sentimentalised, or
domestic his interest in his nephews, the Anglo-Indian has that key
of salvation which is loyalty. He is for England: and for that single
cause I suppose no men or women that ever lived and suffered on
earth have suffered more than those who lie now under the huddled
gravestones of Calcutta.
VII
I am coming to this: that those who accuse Thackeray of being a
snob (even under his own definition) should in fairness lay their
account that he came of people who, commanding many servants,
supported the English tradition of rule and dominance in a foreign
land.
I believe this to explain him in greater measure than he has
generally been explained or understood. Into a class so limited, so
exiled, so professional in its aims and interests—so borné and
repugnant against ideas that would invade upon the tried order of
things and upset caste along with routine—so loyal to its own
tradition of service, so dependent for all reward upon official
recognition (which often means the personal caprice of some
Governor or Secretary of State or Head of Department), some
Snobbery—as we understand the word nowadays—will pretty
certainly creep; to make its presence felt, if not to pervade. But I am
not going to discuss with you the question, “Was Thackeray that
thing he spent so much pains, such excessive pains, in
denouncing?”—over which so many disputants have lost their
tempers. It is not worth our while, as the whole business, to my
thinking, was not worth Thackeray’s while. When we come to it—as
we must, because it bulks so largely in his work—we shall quickly
pass on.
To me it seems that Thackeray’s geniture and early upbringing—
all those first impressions indelible in any artist—affected him in
subtler ways far better worth our considering. Let me just indicate
two.

VIII
For the first.—It seems to me that Thackeray—a social
delineator or nothing—never quite understood the roots of English
life or of the classes he chose to depict; those roots which even in
Pall Mall or Piccadilly or the Houses of Parliament ramify
underground deep and out, fetching their vital sap from the
countryside. Walter Bagehot, after quoting from Venus and Adonis
Shakespeare’s famous lines on a driven hare, observes that “it is
absurd to say we know nothing about the man who wrote that: we
know he had been after a hare.” I cannot find evidence in his works
that this child, brought from Calcutta to Chiswick, transferred to the
Charterhouse (then by Smithfield), to Cambridge, Paris, Fleet Street,
Club-land, had ever been after a hare: and if you object that this
means nothing, I retort that it means a great deal: it means that he
never “got off the pavement.” It means that he is on sure ground
when he writes of Jos. Sedley, demi-nabob, but on no sure ground at
all when he gets down to Queen’s Crawley: that in depicting a class
—now perhaps vanishing—he never, for example, got near the spirit
that breathes in Archdeacon Grantly’s talk with his gamekeeper:

“I do think, I do indeed, sir, that Mr. Thorne’s man ain’t


dealing fairly along of the foxes. I wouldn’t say a word about it,
only that Mr. Henry is so particular.”
“What about the foxes? What is he doing with the foxes?”
“Well, sir, he’s a trapping on ’em. He is, indeed, your
reverence. I wouldn’t speak if I warn’t well nigh mortial sure.”
Now the archdeacon had never been a hunting man, though
in his early days many a clergyman had been in the habit of
hunting without losing his clerical character by doing so; but he
had lived all his life among gentlemen in a hunting county, and
had his own very strong ideas about the trapping of foxes. Foxes
first, and pheasants afterwards, had always been the rule with
him as to any land of which he himself had had the
management.... But now his heart was not with the foxes,—and
especially not with the foxes on behalf of his son Henry. “I can’t
have any meddling with Mr. Thorne,” he said; “I can’t and I won’t
... I’m sure he wouldn’t have the foxes trapped.”
“Not if he knowed it, he wouldn’t, your reverence. A
gentleman of the likes of him, who’s been a hunting over fifty
year, wouldn’t do the likes of that; but the foxes is trapped ... a
vixen was trapped just across the field yonder, in Goshall
Springs, no later than yesterday morning.” Flurry was now
thoroughly in earnest; and, indeed, the trapping of a vixen in
February is a serious thing.
“Goshall Springs don’t belong to me,” said the archdeacon.
“No, your reverence; they’re on the Ullathorne property. But
a word from your reverence would do it. Mr. Henry thinks more
of the foxes than anything. The last word he told me was that it
would break his heart if he saw the coppices drawn blank....”
“I will have no meddling in the matter, Flurry.... I will not have
a word said to annoy Mr. Thorne.” Then he rode away....
But the archdeacon went on thinking, thinking, thinking. He
could have heard nothing of his son to stir him more in his favour
than this strong evidence of his partiality for foxes. I do not mean
it to be understood that the archdeacon regarded foxes as better
than active charity, or a contented mind, or a meek spirit, or than
self-denying temperance. No doubt all these virtues did hold in
his mind their proper places, altogether beyond contamination of
foxes. But he had prided himself on thinking that his son should
be a country gentleman.... On the same morning the archdeacon
wrote the following note:—
Dear Thorne,—My man tells me that foxes have been
trapped on Darvell’s farm, just outside the coppices. I know
nothing of it myself, but I am sure you’ll look to it.—
Yours always,
T. Grantly.

Absurd? Very well—but you will never understand the politics of the
last century—that era so absurdly viewed out of focus, just now, as
one of mere industrial expansion—unless you lay your account with
it better than Thackeray did. As you know, he once stood for
Parliament, as Liberal candidate for the City of Oxford: and it is
customary to rejoice over his defeat as releasing from party what
was meant for mankind. In fact he never had a true notion of politics
or of that very deep thing, political England. Compare his sense of it
—his novelist’s sense—with Disraeli’s. He and Disraeli, as it
happens, both chose to put the famous-infamous Marquis of Hertford
into a novel. But what a thing of cardboard, how entirely without
atmosphere of political or social import, is Lord Steyne in Vanity Fair
as against Lord Monmouth in Coningsby!

IX
The late Herman Merivale, in a very brilliant study, interrupted by
death and left to be completed by Sir Frank Marzials, finds the two
key-secrets (as he calls them) of Thackeray’s life to be these—
Disappointment and Religion. I propose ten days hence to examine
this, and to speak of both. But I may premise, here and at once, that
Thackeray was a brave man who took the knocks of life without
flinching (even that from young Venables’ fist, which broke his nose
but not their friendship), and that to me the melancholy which runs
through all his writing—the melancholy of Ecclesiastes, the eternal
Mataiotes Mataioteton—Vanity of Vanities, all is Vanity—was drawn
by origin from the weary shore of Ganges and brought in the child’s
blood to us, over the sea.
“Vanity of vanities,” saith the Preacher—Thackeray was before
all else a Preacher: and that is the end of it, whether in a set of
Cornhill verses or in his most musical, most solemn, prose—

How spake of old the Royal Seer?


(His text is one I love to treat on.)
This life of ours, he said, is sheer
Mataiotes Mataioteton ..., etc.
And now hear the burden of it on that famous page telling how Harry
Esmond walked home after breaking the news of Duke Hamilton’s
duel and death:

As Esmond and the Dean walked away from Kensington


discoursing of this tragedy, and how fatal it was to the cause
which they both had at heart, the street-criers were already out
with their broadsides, shouting through the town the full, true,
and horrible account of the death of Lord Mohun and Duke
Hamilton in a duel. A fellow had got to Kensington, and was
crying it in the square there at very early morning, when Mr.
Esmond happened to pass by. He drove the man from under
Beatrix’s very window, whereof the casement had been set
open. The sun was shining, though ’twas November: he had
seen the market-carts rolling into London, the guard relieved at
the palace, the labourers trudging to their work in the gardens
between Kensington and the City—the wandering merchants
and hawkers filling the air with their cries. The world was going
to its business again, although dukes lay dead and ladies
mourned for them, and kings, very likely, lost their chances. So
night and day pass away, and to-morrow comes, and our place
knows us not. Esmond thought of the courier now galloping on
the North road, to inform him who was Earl of Arran yesterday
that he was Duke of Hamilton to-day; and of a thousand great
schemes, hopes, ambitions, that were alive in the gallant heart,
beating a few hours since, and now in a little dust quiescent.

A heavy passage, Gentlemen—and commonplace? Ah! as you grow


older you will find that most of the loveliest, most of the most sacred
passages in literature are commonplaces exquisitely turned and
tuned to catch and hold new hearts.
THACKERAY (II)

I
I LEFT off, Gentlemen, upon a saying of Herman Merivale’s that the
two key-secrets of Thackeray’s life were Disappointment and
Religion, and I proposed, examining this to-day, to speak of both.
Well, for the first, I have already (I think) given full room in the
account to that domestic sorrow which drove him, great boon
favourite of the nursery, to flee from his grand new house in
Kensington Gardens—

Cedes coemptis saltibus et domo


Villaque—

to write his novels anywhere rather than at home. In the words of


Barnes’ beautiful lament, which I here make free to divorce from its
native dialect—

Since now beside my dinner-board


Your voice does never sound,
I’ll eat the bit I can afford
Afield upon the ground;
Below the darksome bough, my love,
Where you did never dine,
And I don’t grieve to miss you now
As I at home do pine.
II
But those who stress this Disappointment in Thackeray go on to
allege other causes, additional causes, for it: as that he lost a
comfortable patrimony early in life, and that, conscious of great
powers, he felt them for many years unappreciated, and, when
appreciated, partially eclipsed by the popularity of his great rival,
Dickens. Now I don’t deny that one disappointment may accumulate
upon another on a man: but I ask you to consider also that in
criticism one nail may drive out another, and that in ordinary one
explanation is better than two, almost always far better than three:
the possible conclusion being that not one of the three—not even the
first—is the right one.
Actually, then, Thackeray as a young man lost his patrimony by
flinging the hazard quite gallantly and honourably, as a young man
should; foolishly perhaps, as a young man will, but having been just
as young and foolish I am even now not turned Cato enough to
condemn a boy for that. Let us see just what happened.
From the Charterhouse he came up here, to Trinity. His means
have been variously computed: but you may put it down pretty safely
at £500 a year—a very pretty sum indeed for an undergraduate.
What he did with it you may find for yourselves in those brilliant
chapters in Pendennis—perhaps the very best written on University
life—which treat of Pen’s career at Cambridge.
(For it is Cambridge, of course, though he calls it Oxbridge. And
here may I parenthetically drop a long-hoarded curse upon that trick
of the Victorian novelists of sending up their young heroes to
Oxbridge or Camford, entering them usually at the College of St.
Boniface, head of the river or just about to be head. If, from the
pages of Victorian fiction, a crew could be mustered to unmoor and
paddle down the dear old ’Varsity barge, in the early June twilight,
past the Pike and Eel to Iffley, there to await the crack of the rifle that
loosens the tense muscles,—heavens! what a crew!—or, as Matthew
Arnold would say, “what a set!”—all so indifferent to the rules of
training, so like in appearance to young Greek gods, so thirsty!—
and, on the run of it, what laurels for dear old St. Boniface!... I don’t
know why these hermaphrodite names “Oxbridge” and “Camford”
have always been so peculiarly repugnant to me: but they always
have been, and are. I feel somehow as if to be a graduate of either
were to offend against the Table of Forbidden Degrees. But
Thackeray achieved one success in the blending—when he
combined “scout” and “gyp” into “skip.”)
Oxbridge, then, in Pendennis is Cambridge. Thackeray came up
in February, 1829—in the Lent term, that is, instead of in the
previous October—I cannot discover for what reason. It made him,
however, by the rules then prevailing, a non ens or non annus man
for that year: and being also a non-reading man, he decided after
two years of genially unprofitable residence, to refuse the Tripos and
a degree, and retire on London, and took chambers at Hare Court in
the Temple. His age was twenty.

III
Sainte-Beuve—I have read reasonably in his voluminous works,
but without as yet happening on the passage which, quoted by
Stevenson in his Apology for Idlers, really needs no verification by
reference, being just an opinion dropped, and whoever dropped it
and when, equally valuable to us—Sainte-Beuve, according to
Stevenson, as he grew older, came to regard all experience as a
single great book, in which to study for a few years before we go
hence: and it seemed all one to him whether you should read in
Chapter XX, which is the Differential Calculus, or in Chapter XXXIX,
which is hearing the band play in the gardens. Note well, if you
please, that I am not endorsing this as a word of advice for Tripos
purposes. I am but applying it to Thackeray, who never sat for his
degree, but left Cambridge to write Vanity Fair, Pendennis, Esmond,
sundry other great stories, with several score of memorable trifles—
ballads, burlesques, essays, lectures, Roundabout Papers, what-not.
If I may again quote from Sir Walter Raleigh, “there are two Days of
Judgment, of which a University examination in an Honours School
is considerably the less important.” The learning we truly take away
from a University is (as I conceive) the talent, whatever it be, we use
(God helping), and turn to account. Says Mr. Charles Whibley of
Thackeray’s two years here:

The friendships that he made ended only with his life, and he
must have been noble, indeed, who was the friend of Alfred
Tennyson and of Edward FitzGerald. Moreover, Cambridge
taught him the literary use of the university, as the Charterhouse
had taught him the literary use of a public school. In a few
chapters of Pendennis he sketched the life of an undergraduate,
which has eluded all his rivals save only Cuthbert Bede. He
sketched it, moreover, in the true spirit of boyish extravagance,
which he felt at Cambridge and preserved even in the larger
world of London; and if Trinity and the rustling gown of Mr.
Whewell had taught him nothing more than this, he would not
have contemplated them in vain.

As a matter of fact, of course, the Charterhouse and Cambridge had


taught him much more, even of scholarship. “Scholarship,” is, to be
sure, a relative term which, if lifted to the excellent heights—to scorn
lower degrees of comparison—(as heaven forbid it should not be)
will exclude all who have so learnt their Horace at school that in after
life merely to rehearse and patch together from memory an Ode of
his, long ago learnt for “repetition,” brings comfort to the soul and
can steel it, Romanly, under the stars even on Himalayan outposts.
But if there be aught worthy the name of scholarship to have that
one author bred into your bones—why, then, I challenge that
Thackeray did carry away a modicum of scholarship (and a very
pure modicum, too) from school and university. I shall come to his
prose cadences by and by, and will say no more of them here than
that—in Esmond especially, but in general and throughout his prose
—they are inconceivable by me save as the cadences of a writer
early trained upon Greek and Latin. For blunter evidence, you will
find the Roundabout Papers redolent—in quotation, reminiscences,
atmosphere—of Horace on every page; and for evidence yet more
patent take his avowed imitation of Horace (Odes i. 38), the two
famous, jolly Sapphic stanzas beginning Persicos odi. Turn to your
Conington (say) and you will find them most neatly and adequately
rendered: and then take your Thackeray—

But a plain leg of mutton, my Lucy,


I prithee get ready at three;
Have it smoking and tender and juicy,
And what better meat can there be?

And when it has feasted the master,


’Twill amply suffice for the maid:
Meanwhile I will smoke my canaster,
And tipple my ale in the shade.

Years ago, I discoursed, standing here, on the Horatian Model in


English Verse, attempting to show you how this man and that man—
Andrew Marvell, for example, and Matthew Prior, had attempted it
here and there and how nearly achieved it: of Milton, again, how he
tried to build his Sonnet, redeeming it from the Petrarcan love-
business upon the model of the Horatian Ode; how some sonnets of
his (familiar or political—that To Mr. Lawrence for instance, as a
specimen in one mode, or those To the Lady Margaret Ley, or On
the Late Massacre in Piedmont as specimens in another) are
deliberately, experimentally Horatian; and how narrowly—how very
narrowly—William Cowper, by deflection of religious mania, missed
to be our purest Horace of all. But Thackeray is of the band. To alter
a word of Carlyle’s, “a beautiful vein of Horace lay struggling about
him.”

IV
But, to return upon the first of the two “key-secrets”—
Disappointment and Religion—and to leave Religion aside for a
moment—I cannot find that, save in his domestic affliction,
Thackeray can rightly be called a disappointed man. There is of
course a sense—there is of course a degree—in which every one of
us, if he be worth anything, arrives at being a disappointed man. We
all have our knocks to bear, and some the most dreadful
irremediable wounds to bind up and hide. But whatever Thackeray
spent or owed at Cambridge (to pay in due time), he took away, with
his experience, a most gallant heart. He went to London, lost the rest
of his money in journalistic adventures, and fared out as a random
writer, without (as they say) a penny to put between himself and
heaven. What does he write later on in reminiscence to his mother,
but that these days of struggle were the jolliest of all his life?—

Ye joys that Time hath swept with him away,


Come to mine eyes, ye dreams of love and fun;
For you I pawned my watch full many a day,
In the brave days when I was twenty-one.

That is good gospel. “Fall in love early, throw your cap over the mill;
take an axe, spit on your hands; and, for some one, make the chips
fly.”

V
But (say the critics) he was disappointed, soured because—
conscious of his powers of “superior” education and certain gifts only
to be acquired through education, he felt that Dickens—whom
certain foolish people chose to talk of endlessly as his rival—was all
the time outstripping him in public favour. Now, as for this, I cannot
see how Thackeray, in any wildest dream, could have hoped to catch
up with Dickens and pass him in popularity. To begin with, he came
to fruition much later than Dickens: in comparison with the precocity
of Pickwick Thackeray was in fact thirty-seven before he hit the
target’s gold with Vanity Fair. His earlier serious efforts—Catherine,
Barry Lyndon, The Book of Snobs—are sour and green stuff, call
them what else you will. They deal with acrid characters and (what is
more) deal with them acridly. But even supposing them to be
masterpieces (which title to two of the three I should certainly deny)
where was the audience in comparison with that to which Dickens
appealed? Where, outside a few miles’ radius of Club-land, did men
and women exist in any numbers to whom Thackeray’s earlier work
could, by any possibility, appeal? The dear and maiden lady in
Cranford, Miss Jenkyns, as you remember, made allowances for
Pickwick in comparison with Dr. Johnson’s Rasselas. “Still perhaps
the author is young. Let him persevere, and who knows what he may
become, if he will take the Great Doctor for his model.” But what—
what on earth would she have made of Barry Lyndon? And what
would good Captain Brown himself have made of it? I can almost
better see the pair, on the sly, consenting to admire Tristram Shandy.
Now Dickens and Thackeray were both thin-skinned men in their
sensitiveness to public approbation. On at least one occasion each
made a fool of himself by magnifying a petty personal annoyance
into an affair of the world’s concern. As if anybody mattered to that
extent!—

Hi motus animorum atque haec certamina tanta


Pulveris exigui jactu compressa quiescunt.

But in literary London there are always (I regret to say) busybodies


who will estrange great men if they can; and, the cause of quarrel
once set up, I still more regret to say that the great men quite as
often as not come most foolishly out of it. Thackeray’s estrangement
from Dickens happened over an article by a young journalist of
twenty-seven—Mr. Edmund Yates, afterwards Editor of The World, a
society newspaper—and Thackeray’s foolish insistence, in the teeth
of remonstrances by Dickens and Wilkie Collins, that young Yates
should be expelled from the Garrick Club. A week before
Thackeray’s death, he and Dickens met on the steps of the
Athenæum, passed, turned, and looked at each other. Thackeray
held out a hand, which Dickens did not refuse.
Now may I put in here, Gentlemen, and in parenthesis, a word of
which I have often wanted to unburden myself?... Some of you—
some of the best of you, I hope—may leave Cambridge for Fleet
Street, a street which I too have trodden. It is a street of ambitions;
but withal the centre of our English Republic of Letters, in the motto
of which, though there can be no “Equality,” let us neither exclude
the “Liberty” that Milton fought for, nor the “Fraternity” of elder and
younger brethren. I remember this plea for Fraternity being put up by
an eminent man of letters, still with us; and being so much
impressed by it that it outlasted even the week-after-next, when I
found him taking off the gloves to punish a rival scribe. But these two
were musical critics, arguing about music: and I have sometimes,
pondering, thought that there must really be something naturally akin
between music and prosody (arts of which I know so little), seeing
that the professors of both pelt each other in terms of insult so
amazingly similar and with a ferocity the likeness of which one has to
recognise even while murmuring, “Come, come! What is this all
about, after all?” I suppose the average Musical Review in the
weekly papers to contain more mud to the square inch than even
The Dunciad! And you must acknowledge, Gentlemen, The Dunciad,
for all its wit, to be on the whole a pretty wearisome heap of bad
breeding. It kicks: but as they say in the country, there is “plenty hair
on the hoof.” What I plead is that all we engaged in literature take
some warning from the discourtesies of the past, and that you, at
any rate, who pass out into literary practice from this Tripos of ours,
shall pass out as a confraternity of gentlemen. Consider, if you will,
that Literature, our mistress, is a goddess greater than any of us.
She is Shakespeare and Ben Jonson too; Milton and Dry den; Swift,
Addison, Steele; Berkeley and Goldsmith; Pope and John Gay;
Johnson, Gibbon, Burke, Sheridan; Cowper and Burns; Blake and
Wordsworth and Coleridge; Landor, Scott, Keats, Shelley and Byron;
Carlyle, Ruskin, Tennyson, Browning, all, says the Preacher, “giving
counsel by their understanding and declaring prophecies.” I name
but a few of the procession, but all were her knights; and each, in his
time, fought for his ideal of her—

Blue is Our Lady’s colour,


White is Our Lord’s:
Tomorrow I will make a knot
Of blue and white cords;
That you may see it where I ride
Among the flashing swords.

Or let me lower the key and put it thus—addressing you as plain


apprentices and setting the ground no higher than an appeal for the
credit of our craft. I once wrote of Robert Louis Stevenson, and with
truth, that he never seemed to care who did a good piece of work so
long as a good piece of work got itself done. Consider, on top of this,
the amount of loss to the world’s benefit through those literary broils
and squabbles. You are expected, for example, to know something,
at least, of The Dunciad in your reading for the English Tripos: and I
dare say many of you have admired its matchless conclusion:

Lo! thy dread empire c h a o s is restor’d:


Light dies before thy uncreating word:
Thy hand, great Anarch, lets the curtain fall.

But turn your admiration about and consider what a hand capable of
writing so might have achieved in the long time it had wasted, turning
over an immense buck-basket of foul linen. No, Gentlemen—take
the example of poor Hazlitt—contemporary misunderstandings,
heart-burnings, bickerings make poor material for great authors. I
cannot find that, although once, twice or thrice, led astray into these
pitfalls, Thackeray (and this is the touchstone) ever really envied
another man’s success.
“Get David Copperfield,” he writes in a familiar letter: “by jingo,
it’s beautiful; it beats the yellow chap (Pendennis) of this month

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