Technology is the art of the possible. It is driven by human desire—whether the desire to make a better cupcake or the simple desire to stay alive—but also by the materials and knowledge available at any given time. Food in cans was invented long before it could easily be used. A patent for Nicolas Appert’s revolutionary new canning process was issued in 1812, and the first canning factory opened in Bermondsey, London, in 1813. Yet it would be a further fifty years before anyone managed to devise a can opener.
