 Chiquart recommends that the chief cook should have at hand at least 1,000 cartloads of "good, dry firewood" and a large "barnful" of coal.Food preservation methods were basically the same as had been used since antiquity, and did not change much until the invention of canning in the early 19th century.The most common and simplest method was to expose foodstuffs to heat or wind to remove moisture, thereby prolonging the durability if not the flavor of almost any type of food from cereals to meats; the drying of food worked by drastically reducing the activity of various water-dependent microorganisms that cause decay.