RELISH THE THOUGHT

It seems backwards that summer is the time of year to preserve.
The canning process is hot and sticky and long and difficult, not
what you think of for a fun summer activity.
But now is when most of the summer fruit is ripe. Now is when
zucchini and tomatoes start to come out of your ears.  Now is when
you want to capture those peak-of-summer flavors. 
For years my family was the lucky recipient of my
mother-in-law’s Gravenstein Apple Sauce and my grandmother-in-law’s
Strawberry Jam. Both women grew up in the Midwest where they
learned these skills from their mothers.
When I moved from urban San Francisco to Sonoma County more than
15 years ago, I was already into cooking and DIY kitchen crafts. I
used a dehydrator to dry Granny Smith apples from my tiny (25-by-50
foot) San Francisco garden. My husband and I would cook all day for
a dinner party in the evening. I grew lemongrass and other herbs
and made flavored oils and vinegars. But I did not know how to can.
My mother-in-law offered to teach me, but we could never time it
right.
It wasn’t until my first canning classes at Relish in 2008 that
I learned these skills. Since then I’ve canned citrus into
marmalade, fruit into jam, fruit halves into canned fruit,
tomato-pepper relish, canned tomatoes, and much more. I have
learned that it’s not difficult but it is time-consuming and
certain formulations and steps must be followed to ensure the
resulting foods are safe to eat.
Foods can be categorized by their acid level with high acid
foods being the safest to can because the acidity inhibits the
growth of bacteria. Fruit (including tomatoes) are naturally high
in acid so they are the easiest to can. Other foods like vegetables
are naturally low in acid which is why they are often pickled with
vinegar (which is diluted acetic acid).
I break down canning into two steps:  1. prepping and cooking
the produce and 2. processing the jars.
You can find an unlimited number of recipes online or in
cookbooks, depending on what you want to make—jam, preserves,
jelly, relish, ketchup, sauce, etc.
At Relish we always recommend buying a good canning reference
book such as The Complete Guide to Home Canning and Preserving by
the USDA or the Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving. Use the
guidelines in these reference books for the correct ratios of sugar
and/or acid (i.e., lemon juice or vinegar) for results you can rely
on.
Once you have the correct ratios, you can get creative with
unique or modern flavor combinations. At our last jam class at
Relish, we made Strawberry-Lemon Verbena Jam by adding a few stems
of lemon verbena to the hot jam for a few minutes, then removing
the stems just before canning. The results were fantastic—pure
strawberry with an aromatic undertone of lemon.
As for processing the jars, there are three methods:  water
bath, steam or pressure canning. High acid foods like fruit jams
and preserves can be processed using any of these methods. Low acid
foods must be pressure canned to get to the higher temperature
needed to minimize bacteria growth. Only water bath and pressure
canning are officially approved by the USDA but there are recent
studies by UC Davis that support steam canning as a safe and viable
method.
Once your goodies are in the jars, return to the reference book
for information on the length of time and the best method for
processing. Note that the processing times will vary depending on
what method you use.
I have found that when I take the time “put up”—to clean the
fruit, cook it down and process the jars—the results are quite
precious.  Sometimes I agonize over opening a jar of jam or relish
I’ve made, but when I do there’s a small thrill of anticipation.
The flavor of homemade peach jam on a slice of toast or tomato soup
made with my canned tomatoes is a special treat, especially when
it’s January and it hasn’t stopped raining for 10 days.
The same value applies to other carefully managed foods—fresh
meat from a local farmer, eggs from a neighbor’s or your own
chickens, a purchased artisan cheese or cheese that you culture and
age yourself. The value is present and tangible and the food is not
easily wasted. Overall, I think this is the right direction to go
in…to a place where food is cherished and precious and good (not
cheap and abundant and empty.)
Donna del Rey is the owner of Relish Culinary Adventures
(www.relishculinary.com) in Healdsburg. Her column, Relish the
Thought, will appear monthly. She can be reached at [email protected].