The Lost Art of Food Preservation
Many of our grandma’s used to have basements filled with ball canning jars, strings of both wide and regular mouth rings, and giant water bath canners. We’d go to her house as kids and she’d crack open a jar of peaches for us to munch on or whip up some dinner made with homemade tomato sauce. Everything tasted better and a little closer to how it was supposed to be.
Now, we live in a fast food world. We rush through drive throughs, microwave a frozen meal, and get all our pantry staples shipped to our door in two days. Don’t get me wrong, as a mom to young children, I deeply appreciate the convenience of some of these things. Between the constant demands of the farm and motherhood, I don’t have time to do absolutely everything from scratch. I admire the mothers who do!
Still, we have become so disconnected from our food. We like our meat to come in neat packages void of the thought of the animal behind it. Our tomato sauce comes in glass jars with pretty labels. Our fruit comes pre cut and canned in little tin containers. Our vegetables come in ready to microwave packages.
Again, I am not against some of these things, and I am certainly not against meat! But, we appreciate our food less when we are disconnected to where it comes from. Some think meeting the cow that they are going to butcher is sad, whereas I believe you appreciate and savor the meat more when you know the sacrifice behind it. Tomatoes taste better when you picked them off the vine, processed them, and put your own seasoning and love into them. Kids may be more apt to eat a vegetable they helped grow, preserve, and cook. There is something so fulfilling about eating food that you yourself grew and preserved.
In addition to the connection to our food, we get to know what’s really in our food. If we’re avoiding processed sugar, it’s almost impossible to buy anything canned from the store. No seed oils sneak in when you’re the one making your own sauces. In pressure canning meats or soups ourselves, we can avoid common allergens that often sneak in like gluten or soy. We can reclaim a lot of our health by creating our own pantry staples.
I understand this can be daunting to a person who is new to preservation. Not many of us grew up in homes where our moms made jelly and pasta sauce and canned venison. While I was very fortunate to grow up in such a home, I still have found myself apprehensive when facing some newer to me task like pressure canning. People tout the risks of home preserved foods, but they’re really the same risks with store canned foods. The food companies just have a more streamlined process of canning than we do at home. Once we get the hang of a new skill and learn the necessary requirements for it, we will do as great as our grandma’s did in no time!
Here’s some of my favorite tips if you’re newer to preserving:
Get a Ball Blue Book. Seriously. Get a good physical copy of a canning book that walks you through all the steps and gives you recipes too. Sure, the internet is great and full of free information. But it’s also weighty and full of contradictory information. A simple, straight forward book will be your best friend in the world of preservation. The Ball Blue Book for Preservation is a wonderful, classic guide. Be sure to get the updated version as vinegar acidity levels have changed throughout the years. I also enjoy the book Everything Worth Preserving by Melissa K. Norris
Find a friend to help you! Maybe this isn’t always possible, but if you can find someone who knows more about canning, freezing, fermenting, or dehydrating, see if they’ll teach you! Or at least be on call for you in times of need. I still call my mom late at night when I have questions about something I’m trying to put up. A little guidance and encouragement can go a long way.
Get a high quality food processor or blender. I don’t think I would can without mine! I chop onions and peppers for salsa and blend my tomatoes in it. It makes things so much easier. It’s difficult enough to preserve your own food. Don’t make it harder on yourself. Also life hack here, you don’t have to blanch and skin your tomatoes. With a high enough powered blender, toss those suckers right in skins and all! The skins actually add extra acidity to your tomatoes making them a bit safer for canning!
Invest in high quality preservation tools. I love my $2 garage sale find of a pressure canner, but I’ll tell you what, my sister’s All American pressure canner makes pressure canning so much easier. I would can everything and anything with that canner because it is so nice and easy to use. We also recently invested in a stainless steel water bath canner since our old ones were rusting out. I’m also looking into getting a new food dehydrator that has metal racks instead of plastic. If you want to be preserving food for the long run, investing in high quality tools will definitely be worth it.
Don’t cut corners on processing times or methods. Use your blender, cold pack some thing, take advantages of these short cuts. But when it comes to how long you need to process something, be sure to process it for that entire length of time. Also, do not water bath can low acid foods! If a recipe calls for pressure canning it, it really needs to be pressure canned. These things need to be done so that they are safe to consume. If you follow the directions and all the jars seal properly, your food is just as safe as anything you could buy in the store!
I understand this blog may come a little late for a lot of produce canning. But it may come in time for hunters! Plus it can give you inspiration for next year! We can be the generation that reclaims the art of preserving our own foods! Let us reconnect with what we’re eating and reclaim our health.
