One of the most important prerequisites for the development of civilization was to devise methods on how to preserve foods for storage and transport in order to meet the need for food for increasing concentration in communities. Drying of foodstuffs was probably the first development in this direction, followed by smoking, which in many cases was a natural consequence; drying often was accelerated by hanging up the raw material near the open fire. Nobody had the idea that other processes such as enzymatic breakdown and product changes caused by microorganisms or endogenous enzymes could also be the reason for extension of product life.