You are correct there are multiple ways to preserve foods, and sugar is one, as it’s hyrdroscopic (edit, Hygroscopic I think not hydro-,) it grabs all the water so bacteria can’t use it, same as salt does. Vinegar is another. Pressure cooking, 15 pounds for an hour and a half, does the trick. The older way, tyndallization, which Pasteur (and koch, of germany) popularized, before pressure cookers existed, when they definitively proved germ theory to the legions of dumb motherfuckers believing in spontaneous generation, is to heat something to boiling for an hour or so, covered, let it sit for a day, do it again, then another day and another boil, and it kills any hardy bacteria in it. Not quite as reliably as pressure cookers however.
The best way to pressure cook combines both methods for dry goods, you soak them for a day, letting anything growing in them sprout, boil it for long enough to soak up the water level you want in them, dry it out, then pressure cook the next day.
You are correct there are multiple ways to preserve foods, and sugar is one, as it’s hyrdroscopic (edit, Hygroscopic I think not hydro-,) it grabs all the water so bacteria can’t use it, same as salt does. Vinegar is another. Pressure cooking, 15 pounds for an hour and a half, does the trick. The older way, tyndallization, which Pasteur (and koch, of germany) popularized, before pressure cookers existed, when they definitively proved germ theory to the legions of dumb motherfuckers believing in spontaneous generation, is to heat something to boiling for an hour or so, covered, let it sit for a day, do it again, then another day and another boil, and it kills any hardy bacteria in it. Not quite as reliably as pressure cookers however.
The best way to pressure cook combines both methods for dry goods, you soak them for a day, letting anything growing in them sprout, boil it for long enough to soak up the water level you want in them, dry it out, then pressure cook the next day.
This is a well fleshed out process.