Store It Foods

The art of canning is appealing to more and more people these days, and for good reason.  It’s a way of saving money in tough times, it’s a method of making use of excess produce that might otherwise go to waste, and it’s a means of controlling and knowing all of the ingredients that are going to end up in those canning jars.   Those are great goals, but how do you start?  If you have never canned before, what is needed?

The first step could probably be summed up in one word – “Research”.  Not only do you need to know what tools may be required, you will also want to know how to use them.  There are a great many “How To” guides to canning and just about everything else available online.  That would be a wonderful way to start.   We would also recommend the Ball Blue Book Guide to Preserving.

Many refer to this as the ”Bible of Canning”.  It is chock full of lists, guides, suggested procedures and over 450 recipes for preserving homegrown fruits and vegetables.  Not only would it be useful for research, but it would be of continuing value once you have actually started to can.

Have you ever wondered why there are 31 days in August?  There were 30 days in April, 31 days in May, 30 days in June and 31 days in July.  Wouldn’t it make more sense to keep the sequence going, and have 30 days in August?

Well, that’s the way it was supposed to be.  We need to go all the way back to the early days of the Roman Empire to find the reason for the change.  Julius Caesar was responsible for modernizing the calendar.  The Julian calendar, as it was known, honored that fact by having one of the months named after the famous Caesar.  Hence, the month known as Quintilis was renamed July.

It was followed by Sextilis.

Julius’ successor was his nephew, Augustus, who became the first Roman Emperor.  It was decided that he, too, should be honored by having a month named after him.  For that reason Sextilis became August.  Then it was noted that Julius had 31 days in his month, while Augustus only had 30.  This had to be rectified!  A day was stolen from February, which was already suffering by being the leap year month, and given to August.  Then everybody was happy.

Scientifically, it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.  Sensible or not, we still have 31 days in August.  That’s the way it is and we live with it, and probably no one cares a whit.  After all, in the grand scheme of things, it makes no difference whether we say there are 30 days in that month or 31.  It could be changed, but why bother?

On the other hand, there are things in life that could be changed and should be changed.  Consider something like home canning.  There are too many people who still can the way grandma canned — just because “that is the way you do it.”

Well, in recent years it has been found that low acid foods are better done in a pressure canner, that “oven canning” is not always safe, and that other, once standard practices, have the potential for problems.  A potential for problems does not mean that a problem will always develop, but it could.  Using a water bath canner for canning low acid foods, for instance, was once the standard, and the possibility of not killing all micro organisms may be very small, but the fact that it is now known that some contaminants might survive that canning process, does mean that we should now be considering other, safer alternatives.

The lesson, of course, is that every so often we should re-evaluate our methods.  Is there a better and safer way of doing it?  Is there an easier way of doing it?  Is there a less expensive way of doing it?

When it comes to food preservation it could be very important to find answers to these questions.  Yes, as with the calendar, the answers may end up being that we could make changes, but that it doesn’t really matter.  Sometimes, though, we could make changes and it does matter.