Home Canning Booming As Americans End-Run High Food Prices - NYT

[hatrack]

EDIT

It started with Napoleon, whose war campaigns were being thwarted by limited food supplies (“An army travels on its stomach,” he famously said). When a French newspaper offered a 12,000-franc reward for anyone who could find a way of preserving food, the confectioner Nicolas-François Appert came up with the idea of cooking food, then sealing it in glass jars. These were later replaced on the battlefield with sturdier canisters, called “cans.”

Home canning became a patriotic effort in the summer of 1917, when President Woodrow Wilson issued an urgent plea for women to increase their canning output to help American troops during World War I. “Every bushel of potatoes properly stored, every pound of vegetables properly put by for future use, every jar of fruit preserved adds that much to our insurance of victory,” he said.

Home preservation enthusiasts like Nancy Mion of Bayport, N.Y., would rather make jelly, not war. “One year, I made blueberry jelly, cherry, cinnamon pear, cranberry-orange, damson plum, ginger pear, green pepper, red raspberry, Seckel pears and strawberry jam,” Ms. Mion said. “I also made Victorian spice pears and watermelon pickles.” In all, she cans about 27 varieties of fruits and vegetables. Most is given away to friends and relatives. There are exceptions, including the time she was given a batch of merlot grapes, which she made into a jelly. “The first year I made that,” Ms. Mion said, “I didn’t give any of it away.”

Some people are born to can. Some have canning thrust upon them. Uldene Weidlick’s husband grew up loving his mother’s canned foods. “He told me, ‘You’ve got to learn how to do this,’ ” she said. Her mother-in-law walked her through the process 30 years ago. Now, Ms. Weidlick, who lives in Belvidere, N.J., regularly wins prizes for her chili sauce and raw tomato relish at the Warren County Farmers’ Fair.

EDIT

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/24/nyregion/nyregionspecial2/24Rcanningli.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&adxnnlx=1219604898-6MsgPhRq+IKBhuNLEGy9Dg

[grasswire]

1. I'm doing pickles and freezing berries.

I've got 12 quarts and 12 pints of various pickles (bread and butter, two kinds of dills) finished, and have frozen two flats of blackberries and blueberries.

I still have to do picalilli relish and some more dills. I'd do more, but not enough people like or can eat jam to make that worthwhile, and canned fruit doesn't seem to be worth the price of buying the jars for them.

I'm thinking of doing some dilled green beans.

We are spurred by the fact that the local pickle company has now outsourced its cucumber farming AND production to India. There are no large pickle manufacturers left in the U.S. They are all outsourced to India, which seems just crazy in terms of fossil fuel and sustainability.

[hatrack]

3. For dilled green beans, heres the Secret Tip (R)

Drop one unripe green seedless grape into every jar. It keeps the beans crisp when they might otherwise be a bit mushy.

[jwirr]

4. Is picalilli the same thing as garden relish? I want to can some of that

this year but I will be the only one eating it. Can you share your recipe?

[grasswire]

5. it's a green tomato relish

with chopped cabbage and bell peppers in it. If that's something you want to make and can get the green tomatoes, I'll post a recipe here. I'm lucky to have volunteer cherry tomato plants that provided me last year with about 20 pounds of green tomatos in August.

[jwirr]

6. I may get back to you as we were darn cold here last night. May have

to find some way to use the green tomato. The relish I am looking for had cukes, onions, carrots, and some other things in it. But I do not have my mother's recipes anymore.

[shraby]

7. Cover your tomatoes with sheets,

it will keep them from freezing..if you have to just pick all of them, bring them inside and they will ripen..go through them every couple of days and remove the ripened ones. You will find hardly any are wasted. I've done it many times as has my mother when she was alive.

[grasswire]

8. I'll bet we can find something similar...

...if you post a request over in the cooking and baking forum. There are LOTS of savvy canners over there.

[jwirr]

12. Thanks I did not even know we had a forum like that.

[jwirr]

2. This Monday is scheduled for our family to start pickling the cucumbers.

We make dills, salsa, tomato sauce and anything else we can put by. We do it to help the whole family with grocery bills.

[NoFederales]

9. Just finished a round of tomatoes today. Onions, 'taters, and carrots

stocked away; looking forward to sweet potatoes, pumpkins, and looking in on the bee hives.

Corn was an absolute bust this year with the screwy weather. Weather has been tough on all garden stuff, and hay this season.

Recommend "Root Cellaring", Mike & Nancy Bubel, for storage tips; an oldy, but goody.

NoFederales

[jpak]

10. This summer I made 4 jars of homegrown currant/gooseberry jelly

18 jars of homegrown blueberry jam

12 jars of homegrown mulberry jam

froze 25 pounds of local strawberries and 10 pounds of homegrown blueberries (in organic evaporated cane juice).

froze 20 lbs of local fiddleheads

froze 10 lbs each of local peas and broccoli

Made 3 gallons of dandelion wine (18 cups of dandelion flowers!) and will make 30 gallons of homegrown organic hard cider this Fall.

Going to pick homegrown hops (for home brew) next weekend and freeze 5 dozen ears of cut sweet corn for Thanksgiving.

And harvest time is just beginning...

:hi:

[NoFederales]

11. What are "fiddleheads"? nt

NoFederales

[hatrack]

14. They're a kind of fern, I believe . . .

Though I am always ready to stand corrected!

[XemaSab]

17. You owe it to yourself

to learn the term circinate vernation.

:thumbsup:

[hatrack]

18. Is that anything like Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara?

:toast:

[XemaSab]

19. Same dif

n/t

[jpak]

15. They are emerging shoots of the ostrich fern - a prized "spring green" in Maine

and a sovereign cure for late winter scurvy

:evilgrin:

[NoFederales]

16. Whoa! Late Winter scurvy--I needs something for that. Regards. nt

NoFederales

[kestrel91316]

13. I'm elated to hear this. I taught myself to can years ago, but was

inspired by my grandmother's cellar full of home canned goodies when I was a kid (she was Mormon).

For the more adventurous, you can branch out from fruits and pickles and preserves to meats and soups and stews by PRESSURE canning. Requires attention to detail, strict adherence to instructions, and a pressure canner (NOT a pressure cooker). Great for making sure you have a nice homemade emergency pantry for the occasional blackout or earthquake or apocalypse.

[bananas]

21. Mason jars. nt

[VeraAgnes]

20. I picked-up the home canning

hobby about 10 years ago. I do it because it is fun! Plus, the food tastes so very good and...you can use many of the items as gifts. I do jams, butters, pickles, tomato's and flavored oils and vinegars.