Date: October 24, 1997 11:51 AM
Author: Arthur Welling (artw@lancnews.infi.net)
Subject: Practicing home canning, or, avoiding the evil eye

I have heard from a few people that their friends or family look at them cross eyed because they insist on canning and preserving their own food.

Obviously someone is not sharing here !

I began gardening some years ago, and canning about one season later. In the beginning, one night over dinner, a fight broke out because my brother in law remarked that our home grown/home canned spagetti sauce was MUCH better than his wifes. His wife, sitting next to him at the time, took exception to this and helped him redesign his wardrobe for the evening. Tomato Red really does go with everything as far as I'm concerned.

We got the idea at that time to give our home canned goods as gifts for the holidays. We took the time to make nice labels on the computer and polish the jars a bit. Home grown spagetti sauce, homemade relishes, homemade jam and jelly, home made herbed vinagar, Beef jerky, etc. etc. It all REALLY tastes much better than store bought and our friends/family never EVER make faces at our canning work. In fact, some offer to come over and help at picking time just to assure they get some sauce this year.

Might I offer this as a suggestion to those who wish to take up canning or are looking for a nice face to put on their activity. Homemade food gifts really go over great, and they save you TONS of money. I usually get the jars back too, so the cost of our gifts is little more than the care and work we put in them. No hard cash. Meanwhile, you get to try out recipes and practice old time food preservation. You learn about canning procedures and overcome your fear of a pressure cooker. EVERYONE should have a pressure cooker ! You also build up a supply of jars, bands, and lids with nobody questioning why.

When my brother in law sees me come home with another five cases of mason jars he doesn't ask why because he's to busy salivating.

(http://garynorth.entrewave.com/forums/Index.cfm?CFApp=16&Message_ID=4619)

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Date: October 27, 1997 04:04 PM
Author: Al Durtschi (rcox@mail.lcc.whecn.edu)
Subject: I wanna respond!


I think Art is right on track here. We have also been doing this for years - growing a garden and putting away the things we have grown. We don't can everything, however. Some things we put in our root cellar, like potatoes, carrots, and cabbage. You have to use the cabbage up, but the potatoes and carrots keep well for 10 months, or good until you can start harvesting from the garden the following year.

If you went into our food storage room, you would find that 1/4 of it consists of bottles. The vast majority of this is fruit. Our deep freeze is also full of peas, corn, and a few other goodies. I know the freezer isn't any good for long term storage, but if the worst happened, we'd get out our canning equipment, the Coleman stove, and turn into canning fools (that is if we had the time).

I believe the end goal is to become truly self sufficient. Yes, I understand many people living in apartments in the city just can't do this. But it is still the goal. And until that time, if one wishes to be as prepared as possible, the year supply must be purchased.

You can see that I believe in what Geri Guidetti is doing over in the gardening forum.

Al

(http://garynorth.entrewave.com/forums/Index.cfm?CFApp=16&Message_ID=4721)

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Date: October 29, 1997 11:12 PM
Author: Will_richards (will_richards@hotmail.com)
Subject: You will have lots of time


We are going to do that with our meat in the freezer, I will take our mind of the trouble and focus us on the needs at hand.

By the way ya'll should look into buying beef on the hoof and having it butcherd it is much cheaper and you are assured of the quality. What you see is what you get.

(http://garynorth.entrewave.com/forums/Index.cfm?CFApp=16&Message_ID=4853)