Canning Season Reflections – Sharon Palmer, The Plant Powered Dietitian

August 18, 2022

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Be taught concerning the culinary, dietary, sustainability, and cultural advantages of canning produce.

I’ve so many recollections about my earliest culinary experiences. I can odor the espresso brewing in my Aunt Prussia’s charming home in Yakima, Washington, which she served in her outdated Fiestaware mix-matched cups and saucers (I liked the cobalt blue one the perfect!). I can bear in mind rolling out sugar cookies on the kitchen counter for the vacations, and adorning them elaborately. And better of all, I bear in mind canning season—prefer it was yesterday!

My mom, Aunt Lena, and Aunt Prussia with our prize produce from Japanese Washington, which we canned every summer time.

Each summer time, we’d pack up the station wagon with my aunt and siblings on board and head from Seattle to Japanese Washington, which grows a cornucopia of lovely vegatables and fruits. We’d choose up bins of peaches, apricots, pears, apples, and tomatoes. On the way in which again, we’d open the home windows to let within the sizzling, dusty breeze (no AC!), which might combine with that intoxicating odor of ripe fruit. I used to be drunk on these smells by the point we pulled into our driveway and unloaded our booty.

Considered one of our favorites was house canned tomatoes.

The following factor we’d do is begin canning all of these beauties in mason jars, so we’d have scrumptious produce all yr lengthy. After all, that is after we ate as a lot contemporary, ripe produce as we may pack into our bellies. These candy, juicy peaches—pores and skin and all, and saucer-wide tomatoes that we’d eat like apples with a sprinkle of salt and pepper…by the point we stationed ourselves on the kitchen counter to begin the canning course of, I used to be coated of their sticky fragrance! My job after I was little was to assist fill the jars with the fruit, arranging them so they might look fairly within the jars—when the canning was finished, the jars can be organized within the pantry like glistening gems all winter lengthy.

Stone fruit similar to plums and peaches are nice for canning.

My mother canned produce for the winter every summer time till she was 85! I’d like to take down jars after I visited her in Seattle. Considered one of my favorites was canned tomatoes! We might can the largest, juiciest, ripest pink tomatoes in jars, after which have these great tomatoes in soups, vegetarian chili, pasta dishes, and casseroles all yr lengthy.

Canning, which has been handed down by means of the generations all through our historical past, was a method to protect produce to final by means of the winter when contemporary produce was much less out there. People discovered to protect meals by means of drying, salting—and ultimately canning—in order that they may survive in the course of the chilly months. Fruit and veggies have important vitamins that we’d like to be able to survive—nutritional vitamins, minerals, and even phytochemicals—so it was necessary to make sure that a gradual provide of nutritious meals have been out there. Canning mature, ripe produce means you lock on these vitamins. It’s way more sustainable to rely on canned produce—greens like tomatoes, inexperienced beans, and corn and fruits like peaches, applesauce, and pears—than it’s to buy contemporary produce out of season which has been shipped lengthy distances to get to your market. Plus, you possibly can reap the benefits of a bounty of produce when it’s out there. No meals waste needed! Canned produce additionally has a really lengthy shelf-life, which reduces meals waste much more. And canned meals are additionally really easy to make use of in cooking. Simply open a jar of tomatoes and dump them into your favourite lasagna or soup, pop open the lid on applesauce and mix it into breads and baked items, and unleash the ability of canned peaches right into a fruit cobbler or breakfast porridge.

You possibly can be taught extra about house canning your personal produce with this house canning information from the USDA, which has every little thing it is advisable learn about getting began! And don’t overlook to attempt your hand at pickling, which is one other type of preservation and canning which might have added probiotic advantages.