Glass cans and plastic bottles
It’s called “canning” but we use glass jars to “put by” food from garden and farmer’s market. A new generation of under-40s is interested in preserving homegrown and local food–across the country, not just in our neck of the woods. Check out this article about and link to a survey by “the greenhorns,” a new generation of grow-your-own foodies.
Then, there’s the other side of the ag picture: mega farms, specifically, mega-dairies. Here’s a recent video from The Ecologist. Europe does not have mega-dairies…yet. The debate is on. Plastic has replaced the glass milk bottles of my youth. How the milk gets to the plastic has also changed, of course.
And, here’s a link to a video on agricultural subsidies from reason.tv –you’ll find related video links at the same location, from across the political spectrum.
Back to the top: do you can? freeze? dry? what do you put up each year?
Tags: agriculture, dairy farms, preserving food
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I “can,” basically what my mother canned, and I follow the routine I leaned helping her. Tomatoes (30 quarts or so — my only “quantity product”) and tomato products like chili sauce and tomato conserve (a jammy, nutty wonderful way to reduce surplus), other jams and jellies, applesauce, and some pickles. She also canned green beans, but I ate enough of those for a lifetime long ago.
That’s about it. Most years I have plans to do more with fruit, but fruit seasons don’t coincide, somehow, with my internal canning clock. I’m busy, and the list of chores goes on and on.
I also freeze things. During the late blight disaster last year I froze a lot of tomatoes. I freeze tomato sauce and soup sometimes, for a fresher taste. And I freeze surplus berries, cherries, corn on the cob, usually a few beans and peas. But not in a big way.
I do it for the ritual and the connection to the past — for the process as much as the product. I have three editions of the Ball Blue Book from my mother’s kitchen (the tomato conserve recipe was dropped about 60 years ago), and a really old copy of “Putting Food By.” But this year I bought a big, thick book from Rodale, the third edition of “Stocking Up,” when my 26 year-old son had picked gallons of blackberries (big ones, in Oregon) and needed some new ideas.
I haven’t canned anything in a couple years, but intend to soon, maybe even this fall , I may can some venison. It used to be a yearly thing with my folks when I was growing up. My mom canned both vegetables and beef or venison. If you’ve never tried canned venison or beef, you’ve cheated yourself of something special, and a great thing to have in the pantry when you want a quick meal.
We eat what we can, and what we can’t, we can!
I don’t enjoy most housework…but I do enjoy canning. Why? Just check out a canner’s shelves and you’ll see why. The house gets dirty quickly but a canner’s shelves diminish slowly (and steadily). Meanwhile, I get to enjoy the beautiful display of the fruits of my labor. Such a grand sense of accomplishment!
My mother canned fruit…lots and lots of fruit…probably because our house in the country was located in the middle of an orchard.
I canned as a young married woman…pickles, relish, marinara sauce. Children rebelled: they wanted processed food!
Now, as adults, they request my canned goods for.
I can tomatoes, sauce, pickles, relish, applesauce, applebutter, peaches, pears, jams: blueberry, strawberry and peach.
We have two freezers full of food, one for fruit and vegetables (we grow our own) and one for meat: our home grown chicken and turkey, locally caught fish and locally hunted venison.
The difference in taste and quality of home processed food over commercially processed food is huge. And, when you process your own food, you know what is in it. No additives. No preservatives. Just fresh from the garden (we grow without adding herbicides, insecticides, pesticides, hormones or any of the long list of mostly unpronounceable ingredients one finds in commercially processed foods).
Canning (and freezing) is work I truely enjoy!