05
Canning
We have once again reached the fall everyone and the harvesting season has really begun. In just two short months all of the farmer’s markets will be slowing down or closing entirely. Our CSA’s will be puttering to a stop here around the same time and then we will be on our own to try and figure out how to make our food choices work and believe me you do have some options. For those of you out there whop don’t know already, you also have one other option to store up some food for the winter that you are currently able to find at the markets or in your CSA box.
Canning is a practice that I tout till the ends of the earth because it as gotten me through years of winter. When I was a kid it was normal part of every week that on sunday nights the whole family would can whatever produce we had left over because mondays were the farmer’s market days and we would survive off that food for the week ahead. Canning is a way to store food for yourself at home that will certainly last you all winter long and will definitely save you some money in the long run. It will take a small investment at first but it is well worth the pocket change from your student loans.
The art of canning begins with a trip to the store. In any supermarket you can find, in the isle with the plastic bags, ball jars. These jars come in all sizes from a pint all the way up to a two gallon jug. For most canning purposes you will need either the pint or the quart jars. The smaller jars are for things like jams and jellies and the larger jars are for your staples like tomatoes and pickles. When you have the jars the next thing to get will be a pot large enough to fit about six to ten jars or so. The pot doesn’t need to have a lid but it helps. You will also need some type of tongs and there are some that are made specifically for this purpose. Now you are ready to get to canning.
At this point I won’t go too much in to the actual process of canning because the process varies for every kind of food you wish to can. Here I would recommend that you go ahead and buy a book on canning. There are plenty of resources for this and even I still go out of a book to keep myself focused on the way the process is supposed to go.