Posted on 08/09/2009 6:58:26 AM PDT by Diana in Wisconsin
During the first World War, the U.S. government asked its citizens to contribute to the war effort by growing gardens. Americans rose to the challenge. The millions of quarts of provender produced by this astonishing effort not only fed American families, but helped feed starving people all across Europe. Humankind caring for humankind in a time of need – an example the world could heed today.
Similar food shortages have occurred throughout the centuries. When Napoleon was faced with the problem of feeding his rapidly growing military, the French government offered 12,000 francs to anyone who could figure a solution. A man named Nicolas Appert, though not completely understanding why, discovered that by putting food into a bottle or jar, sealing the jar up tight and cooking it for a few hours, the food could be preserved for consumption later. Napoleon’s army didn’t go hungry.
During the 17th and 18th centuries, flocks of free-thinkers sailed the ocean blue in search of a place where they could live free and govern their own lives. Once settled in their respective colonies, they too found daunting the challenge of having enough to eat. Through much trial and error, they discovered how to provide their daily needs and to preserve the precious leftovers for leaner times. Waste not, want not. The colonists learned how to take care of one another.
Preservation progress came at a cost, however. For example, it wasn’t until the late 19th century that anyone knew about Clostridium botulinum, the soil-borne bacterium whose lethal toxin, sometimes found in improperly canned food, claimed countless lives. Likewise, pickled provender frequently went bad when cork stoppers or pig’s bladders were used to cover the crocks and jars. Jams and jellies, sealed with brandy-soaked paper, often sprouted mold. But help was on the way – in the form of a rubber-sealed glass jar.
Tinsmith John L. Mason couldn’t possibly have known how his 1858 patent would permanently revolutionize family nutrition. His machine mass-produced threaded metal jar lids that, in combination with threaded-neck jars and rubber sealing rings, made it easy for virtually anyone to achieve a safe seal when canning. Mason’s canning jar and lid concept caught on immediately and opened the door for several improvements and modifications with familiar names like Ball, Atlas E-Z Seal and Kerr. Through time, the rubber seal has improved, as has the science behind the processing, but home canning is every bit as accessible today as it was in 1858.
You, too, can can
Before starting a canning project of your own, you should keep a few things in mind. It is best to gather only the produce you can work up in a few hours. This ensures optimum nutrition and quality. If possible, harvest early in the day.
Get your supplies out and check them over. Always use jars made especially for canning rather than old mayonnaise or pickle jars, and never use jars that are cracked or chipped around the rim. Use only the two-piece screw lids, never re-using the flat piece, as its protective ability is compromised once lifted off a jar.
Lids and jars should be sterilized before use by boiling for at least 10 minutes, leaving them in the hot water until they are needed.
The two canning methods in general use today make use of either a boiling-water bath or pressure canner for processing. The boiling-water system requires longer processing times and is suitable for foods with higher acid contents, while the pressure canner reaches higher temperatures faster and is suitable for virtually all food types. Once you have decided which fruit, vegetable or meat you want to can, be sure to educate yourself on the current recommendations for method, processing time and sterilization precautions for that produce. Your county extension office provides a wealth of information for your area, or you can go online to such sites as the USDA’s National Center for Home Preservation
www.UGA.edu/nchfp
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We’re not making sauce, just diced tomatoes for vegetable soup. I think I’ll probably get more than 9 or 10 pints from 50 pounds of tomatoes.
Start off learning to can with something simple. Tomatoes are no brainers as are beans and peas. Clearing off enough counter space for pickles is the hardest part.
After that, try your hand at preserves and jellies. Preserves are easier than jellies because you don’t have to stain them. However, here’s a tip to help use up as much of the fruit as possible. Strain your fruit for jelly but save the pulp. The pulp can then be made into preserves or fruit butters such as apple butter, etc. (hope you know this isn’t butter made from cream but fruit spreads, right?) Butters are such comfort foods. They want a little extra spice such as cinnamon or nutmeg to give that homey warmth taste.
If you have lots of tomatoes, make tomato preserves... yummmm!
Then try your hand at meat.
For those who find they have some old preserves, make filled cookies. I use the filled cookie dough recipe from an old 1950’s Betty Crocker cookbook but you can make a basic sugar cookie dough (but not too sweet). Roll it out and cut into 3-4” circles. Put a spoon of preserves in the middle of the circle and cover with another circle of dough. Seal the edges, prick the top with a fork for vents and bake. These are the best! They put poptarts to shame.
Make tomato preserves!
Like my dad I love to take a quart of canned whole tomatoes in a big bowel with lots of sugar on them. I remember seeing him put canned tomatoes on his Shredded Wheat because I drank all the milk. My First Wife makes jelly with our frozen blueberries. also great BB and Raspberry pies...
Am in absolute agreement with you. The lids/seals are the issue, not the jars themselves.
I use old peanut butter and oyster jars, but use new lids and never have a problem.
That's a special man right there. :0O
Do you mean that new lids in the box more than two years old should be tossed, and new lids purchased before canning?
Or do you mean sealed lids on processed jars can't be trusted to stay sealed beyond two years?
In either case, if the lid seals when the jar cools, the jar is sealed; if you check the seal before opening a jar, it is obvious whether it is still sealed.
I have used new in-the-box lids that had been "lost" on a shelf that were at least ten years old, and all of them sealed, and stayed sealed, until the jars were opened.
When we bought this ranch, it had not been lived in for about 25 years, and there were several shelves in the basement full of canned produce, mainly corn label-dated 1972 that were still tightly sealed, and looked fine, and smelled fine, when we opened them and dumped the contents into the outhouse.
Bottom line: ALWAYS make sure each jar sealed before storing; ALWAYS make sure the seal hasn't failed before opening for use.
Others have mentioned reusing lids, but I have never done so, and I wouldn't recommend it.
Last night, it was off to the movies. First stop, our local elderly widow neighbor...bag of zucchin & pattypan for her. At the theater, a bag of same each to the manager and the snack bar gal.
Today, out neighbors, who bought 20 acres from us and had their garden wiped out by hail, will be by to pick up more.
He’s an Anglican priest, and a member of the local Ministerial Association, which runs a food bank, so later on in the season....
My wife has been “canning her tail off” (to use her own words) this summer. I’m gonna have to build her a bigger pantry.
We do buy new lids for our canning. I never reuse the lids. They are cheap enough and don’t keep a lot in stock.
Either get a decent guide to canning jars at your library, or buy a recent copy of the Red Book of Fruit Jars.
Also check the Web & eBay for current prices.
The rest, as long as they're in decent shape should be perfectly usable.
See my #67...we've been there; done that.
Could I have that recipie? I have quite a few zucchinies and we are looking for recipies to fix them with.
I like pressure cooking, myself, and plan on buying my wife a modern pressure cooker, w/ pop-off valve.
I do still have all the parts and pieces of my mom's old time cooker :)
If they’re not dented at all, and the rubber seal looks fine, then yes, I do.
No problems to date.
I think a lot of time you need new lids because someone pops it off with an opener and bends it a little. In that case, it won’t re-seal, of course.
“Instead, growing crops like potatoes and squash gives much more food value for the same area. They are also less prone to insect attack.”
Agreed, to an extent.
I think if varies greatly by geography. I have clay soil, so root crops don’t grow well for me. I grow potatoes above ground in tire rings, and my onions are grown in my much-improved flower beds. Carrots? Fuggeddaboudit!
Thirty miles north of me is ‘sand country’ and I can get onions, potatoes and root veggie for a song...so they’re not worth the garden space to me.
But you’re absolutely right. To be totally self-sufficent takes some planning and hard work. I’ve had my farm for 15 years now and I’m about a QUARTER of the way there between my garden, orchard and laying hens. I really, really REALLY want a milk cow, but Husband isn’t budging on that.
For now...LOL! :)
You’re welcome! I was considering subscribing, but I think I’ll absorb all I can from their website instead. ;)
I’m hungry for tomato soup now! :)
Oh, Yum! Thanks! :)
Thanks, Diana, for the canning thread. I started making perserves a few years ago, and have made pickles recently for the first time, and my wife has always made blackberry jelly. I would like to see a regular canning thread, and other pertanate subjects, like drying or cooking. These are a bit outside of FR’s conservative poltical arena, but they do cut us some slack. :)
If it wasn’t so dangerous ... it would be funny. to this day I HATE things under pressure.
I’m a physicist by training and if people knew what just 5lbs above atmospheric is capabale of .....
An old farm boy ... tire shops used to come out to the farm and put new tires on dual wheel sets for then Big tractors 5020 John Deeres and large combines. (they are small now) To air them up, the tire guy would put a snap lock hose on the schraeder valve ... then go to the other side of the truck, eat lunch and take a snooze while the service truck/compressor (often a VW engine with 2cylinders pumping air and 2 cylinders firing) filled the tractor tire. We had a service guy killed when he failed to wake up in time. Blew him a way. Literally.
I am also a gun nut ... back to the pressure thing ... Does anyone have a clue what shootin +p loads on a 38 or 357 frame do for a revoler not rated??? Damn ... I shudder every time someone tells me don’t worry .. I do it all the time. Or that some hot shot is always bragging about reloading and reloading hot ....
but alsas .. I digress .... happens a lot in my old age .... bear with me please...
But fortuantely this old pressure cooker does have a pop off valve, and yes, The first thing I did was tried it out along with a brand new seal in a safe bench/cage area in the garage. Works dandy.
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