Casaubon’s Book

Sharon July 31st, 2008

My favorite way to eat most foods is fresh, just picked.  That means my absolute favorite way to store food is to extend my garden’s season so I don’t have to do any major preservation work.  And this is so easy - fall gardening is fun, no pests, and the food tastes better after a frost or two generally - the difference is huge.  Kale eaten after a hard freeze is tender, with a deep sweetness.  Kale before a freeze ain’t bad.  Carrots that have undergone some cold weather are sugary, cabbage sweet and crisp.  This is a good thing.

 Even in chilly upstate NY, without a greenhouse or a hoophouse (I’m hoping to have the latter soonish), I can keep stuff going through December and into January.  The last few years, I’ve managed to overwinter spinach, kale and leeks occasionally completely unprotected - throw a foot or two of leaves on things, and no problem. 

The book to get on this subject is Eliot Coleman’s _Four Season Harvest_ and I’m going to really recommend you use it.  Obviously, the degree to which you can do this or need to do this will depend on where you live - in the coldest places, you can’t leave anything out at all. In warm ones, season-extension might be throwing a blanket over the watermelon during the occasional frost.  But for my area, I’ll give you a sense of how it works.

 There are two kinds of season extension, to my mind.  The first is the protection of crops so that you can harvest over the winter, the second is the planting of crops that will grow or regrow very early in the spring, to tide you over when nothing else is growing.  Both are good. 

For the former, generally most of the growth has to be done here by mid-September - which means that I’m planting a lot of the fall greens and vegetables right now.  Peas are started in peat pots inside, roots are planted or transplanted to be harvested in October or later.  Quick growing greens like mizuna, arugula and spinach can be planted as late as early September. 

Then the question is how much protection do they need, and do I want to give them?  I’m lazy - but you can do all sorts of things - cold frames are great - you can build them or make them out of straw bales and old windows.  Floating row covers will offer some protection, as will mulch.  Even blankets thrown on at night and taken off in the morning will extend your season a week or two in many cases.  Don’t forget to bring in containers and keep them growing on a windowsill - that’s season extension too!

 The amount of effort you put in, and your investment will depend on what you are trying to accomplish - to keep a full crop of vegetables in place all winter will probably involve at a minimum a hoophouse and floating row covers, and maybe supplemental heat in a cold spot.  To extend your season an extra month or so might be easily done with some plastic and some leaves.  Again, there’s a lot of information out there, more than  I can offer here.

 The second kind of storage is related - the kind you eat early in the spring - for example, parsnips are often used this way, kept in the ground until the thaw begins and dug and enjoyed then at their sweetest.   Salsify and scorzonera work this way too.   Kale, leeks, collards, roots, winter lettuces, mache and other very cold hardy things can also be overwintered with mulch - they will die back during the winter, but regrow vigorously long before you can get down into the soil.

 The thing is, while you can learn a lot from Coleman and others, if you want fresh foods year round (other than sprouts) it will take practice - this is one of those things where advice can, I think only go so far - you will need to do a lot of experimentation - but think about how glorious it is to be able to eat things fresh, when nothing else fresh is about.

 Sharon

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Sharon July 29th, 2008

Several people have expressed frustration recently that there are so many things to buy when you are preserving food.  They are experiencing what many of us probably will experience sooner or later - no money.  So while some people are using what they have while they have it to get good equipment, others are already priced out of these options, and it is hard for them.

So let’s go over the lowest cost ways to store food, and the best strategies for getting ahold of equipment cheaply.

- Ok, the cheapest technique is definitely root cellaring. That will be the subject of Thursday’s posts, so I won’t be emphasizing it here, but the cooler you keep your house (a characteristic of low income folks) the more you can keep things. 

First, squash and pumpkins like cool house temperatures, and garlic and onions do pretty well at those temps too.  Most other storable crops, including roots and apples require colder temps - but if you have natural cold and can close off a room, throw a cooler outside, or bury an old fridge in your yard (or a barrel) you are golden, and get all the potatoes, onions, beets, carrots, etc… preserved in their natural state.  You can also use the “dig a hole” (or use an existing hole like a basement) method for refrigeration, saving you money, and extending the life if your kimchi and sauerkraut. 

 How do you get root cellarable vegetables if you are struggling?  Well, pumpkins are pretty easy - I’d be willing to bet you can get as many as you want the day or two after halloween if you go to a farmstand or any venue that sells them - better yet, make the arrangement first.  I’ve gotten 100 for $5 - and they make good people food, not to mention chicken, goat, sheep, etc…

Many places have gleaning programs - I’ve mentioned them before, but if your area doesn’t have one, you might talk to a farmer about whether you and a friend could glean their fields after they harvest. 

Talk to farmers - they may be selling the potatoes for $2 a lb, but they probably aren’t using that price if you can buy 50lbs at a time - last year our local farm sold potatoes at $12 for 50lbs and “horse” carrots for $6 for 25lbs.  You don’t have to tell anyone you don’t have a horse.  If you are willing to take whatever they have leftover at the end of the day, or to buy their weird surplus of beets, it might be even cheaper.

It isn’t too late in many places to plant some root crops - winter radishes, daikon, turnips, some rutabagas, beets and some carrots will still mature. 

Lots of people don’t harvest their fruit - ask if you can collect apple drops.  Or visit a farm and ask if you can have them - the damaged ones can be sauced or dried.

 - Ok, next cheapest method - lactofermentation.  All you need is salt and water and vegetables.  This is a great way to use wild greens that you harvest from your yard or a public park (just make sure they don’t spray) - dandelion, plantain, lambs quarters - all can be fermented and flavored with a few pennies worth of hot pepper or caraway or other spices.  If you want to keep it a  long time, don’t have a cold cellar or a fridge, bury it in the ground.  Cabbage is generally inexpensive, and again, it isn’t at all too late to plant some greens for fall that can be fermented when it gets cooler.

- Season extension probably comes in next in terms of cheapness.  Depending on where you live it might need a fair bit of stuff, or you might be able to just scrape up some leaves from the ground (or grab a bag someone leaves out on their lawn, and mulch stuff deeply.

I’m going to do a whole post on this tomorrow, but generally speaking, south of the mason dixon line or in the pacific northwest, you can probably overwinter with just mulch and the right crops, north of there you might need to scavenge some old windows to put on top of a few bales of hay or straw (for this you can get the ones that were rained on in the field, or ones that have started to rot, or last year’s dusty ones - you might be able to get them free - or try after harvest festivals and halloween asking about the decorative ones) over your crops.  Plastic sheeting will work too. 

Root crops can often be heavily mulched and survive - parsnips especially, but other crops might manage if you are in a moderately mild climate.

And again, in my lattitude, a lot of season extended crops are being planted right now - it isn’t too late!

- Next is dehydration.  If you live in a dry climate, you can lay things out on a hot day in the sun, or hang apple rings and green beans under the eaves of your attic.  If you live in a humid one, and have a car or can get your hands on a junker, try doing it in the car.  If you heat with wood, hanging things behind or near the woodstove will work. With a pilot light oven you should be able to dry in that.  And dehydrators are commonly for sale cheap - but it might take a while to find one at your price.  Consider posting a request on Craigslist.

- Preservation in salt requires just an awful lot of salt.  This is not yet expensive, but can’t usually be scavenged and does require an initial purchase.

- Preservation in alcohol is kind of pricey, unless you can make your own wine and preserve fruit or cheese in it.  Most of the equipment for winemaking can be scavenged, however.

- Canning can be cheap or expensive.  If you can find free or very cheap canning jars (and they are common where I am), already have a big pot and something to put on the bottom of it (cake rack, canning jar rings laid flat, anything that makes a rack that will elevate the jars), the only cost is the heating energy and the jar lid.  Still, it isn’t totally cheap.

 Pressure canning can be cheap, again if you have a source for jars, and can find a cheap used pressure canner, but again, it is probably the hardest method.

- Freezing is the most expensive method, and one we haven’t talked about much here, because I think for most of us, the rising price of electricity will make it inefficient.  On the other hand, this gets me into one thing that I do want to talk about - sharing.  While I think that for many people, a large home freezer may not be financially doable, there are a lot of such freezers out there, and people could reasonable rent/barter space in them, and share them.

Which brings me to the other point - what’s the best strategy if you can’t afford a piece of equipment?  Find someone to share - maybe get to know a local home canner, and ask if you can borrow their pressure canner in exchange for cutting some wood or watching their daughter.  Talk to the guy with the dehydrator about whether you could trade something for a few hours of dehydration a year.  Now this is tough stuff in our culture - we don’t do this. But it is time, and past time to start - if we don’t share if we don’t learn to share, we’re not going to get very far in a lower energy future.

 I’ve written before that I don’t think there should be any conflict between the people who are prepping like mad and can buy stuff and those who can’t. Those of us who can are getting ready for the same world those who can’t are - and the odds are good that we’re going to need each other - even if it is just someone willing to help cut five zillion strawberry hulls out in exchange for a chance to use the dehydrator next.  The person who owns enough food preservation equipment to feed India is going to have a labor shortage in many cases - the person who has no money often has some time they can share. 

Some one on a list I was on once referred to it as “building the village before the villagers are ready” - the truth is that if you’ve got money, spending it on useful tools is a good thing.  If you haven’t, get knowledge, a little practice, and share what you can - because you are bringing something to village too - something absolutely essential - time, energy and ability.

 Sharon

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Sharon July 24th, 2008

Ok, you’ve gone through all the work of growing the stuff, canning or drying it, or buying it and hauling it home - how do you keep from losing it to pests, age, lack of planning, etc…?

Chile has a terrific post on managing food waste in general here - we waste at least 1/4 of all our food. Now we probably can’t get that down to 0 - although if you have animals, a worm bin or a compost pile, you can at least ensure that your waste has an upside.  But it is still cheaper to feed your worms on banana peels than on chocolate layer cake you let go bad, and it is better for everyone if people food gets used as people food.

 So how do you handle and manage your stored and preserved food to minimize waste?

1. To the extent you can, try to minimize gaps between harvest time and preservation - the longer you wait, the fewer nutrients, the more spoilage, the lower quality the food, the more you risk one rotten berry giving an off taste to the whole batch, not to mention the swarms of fruit flies.  If you can harvest on the same day, do - it makes a difference.

2. Have a back up plan for edible parts of the food you don’t want to preserve.  The peels to those lemons can be dried to make lemon zest, or used to flavor lemon vinegar.  The apple peels can be used to make apple vinegar.  Watermelon rind pickles, corncob jelly, many things with zucchini - these are the products of excess and thrift.

3. When you are freezing or canning, pack the food in quantities that you can eat quickly. Yes, I know it is faster to can all that blackberry jam in quart jars, not half-pints, but if there are only two of you, you will be throwing out some jam if you can it in containers that are two large. Same with freezing - if you freeze all the chicken stock in one container, you then have to use it - if you can get only what you want, you have less chance of seeing things rot.

4. Expect to have to use some things up quickly - that jar of jam that didn’t seal, or the pressure canned soup that you weren’t quite sure about.  The bits of meat that didn’t fit in that last jar and you didn’t bother canning. 

5. Don’t get more than you can store.  It would be a mistake to buy more food than you can store correctly - if you don’t have jars or buckets, don’t get a ton of oatmeal until you do.

6. Less air, less heat, less humidity are always better.  Life isn’t perfect, but it is worth making some effort on these fronts if  you can.

7. Check everything regularly - open lids, examine sealed jars, take a sniff of the sauekraut.  Do it regularly - and schedule it.

8. In an emergency, get out the canner and dehydrator, and get to work.  Sudden early frost meant you had to pull in all the berries?  Power was out three days and now you have half a cow half-defrosted?  Bad storm took down the cherry tree, and the cherries with it?  Cold snap came too early to ripen the tomatoes?  Well, it is time to get out there with alternate methods - throw the frozen corn in the dehydrator, get the pressure canner running and can that beef as stew.  Food preservation techniques can save you from food losses.

9. Even in a non-emergency, food preservation should be used to extend the life of food that can’t be saved another way.  We can the slightly wrinkled apples in the root cellar as applesauce, we make sauerkraut and kimchi when the cabbage is fading, dehydrate the onions and garlic if they show signs of trouble.  A combination of strategies can work better than any single one.

10.  Once you’ve preserved it, don’t forget to eat it.  This sounds obvious, but it isn’t to a lot of people - things get crammed in the back of the fridge. You worked hard for this - so use it up, plan your menus around the leftovers, make sure you scrape out the jam jar (if you add a little water to a jar of jam and shake it up, you can make a popsicle out of it), and use that pickle brine to flavor your tuna sandwich or as part of salad dressing. 

Sharon

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Sharon July 24th, 2008

Ok, Remember my emphasis on safety when talking about Water Bath Canning last week.  Did you think I was anal then?  You ain’t seen nothing yet.  With water bath canning, there are a few things that can be dangerous - but mostly, the acidity will protect you from botulism.  By definition, most of the things that you will be pressure canning can support botulism toxin - which means if you do it wrong, you and anyone who eats your food could die horribly. 

 Now I can imagine that there are some people who are just plain terrified, and don’t ever want to pressure can.  But if you eat food from cans, you are eating food using the very same processes - that is, the canned pumpkin or soup you are eating has precisely the same risks and benefits that home canned food has (and, in fact, there was a botulism outbreak involving commercial foods last year).  So the issue here is not “I should be afraid of pressure canning” but “I should be very wary and respectful of pressure canning, and make sure I do it *EXACTLY* correctly.”  Because the truth is that properly canned food is safe.  What I want to make clear is that cutting corners, or using older techniques your Grandma taught you, or just estimating is not sufficient in this case.  I’m one of those estimating type of people - but I don’t do that when I pressure can.

Here are my rules for pressure canning:

1. No one pressure cans until they have water bath canned.  Seriously, until you learn the basics of handling jars, filling them, creating a seal, etc… don’t start pressure canning.

2. Make sure you are up to date on your canning information - use only *CURRENT* canning instructions.  You can use older recipes - or any recipe - but make sure that when you can the food, you can it using currently appropriate techniques for the ingredient that has the LONGEST canning time - that is, if you have a family recipe for meat sauce, can the recipe based on the meat, which is probably the thing that requires the longest canning time.

3. You should have a copy of the Ball Blue Book - a current guide to canning.  I also suggest you take a look at this site for current, up to date instructions, but I strongly encourage people to get a copy of the CURRENT (or at least within the last few years - canning books written before 1994 are not safe!!!)  Ball Book (usually available anyplace canning supplies are sold, or online) or the book that the site mentioned above is selling,  because I think sometimes when you are in the middle of a big project, with your hands covered with stuff and water steaming out of a pressure canner, you might not stop to go online and confirm that it was, indeed, 12 lbs pressure, not 10.  This is not acceptable - so have the book so you can just look it up, or please swear  up and down that either you will look it up, even when it seems inconvenient, or just spend the $6 and get the book.

4. Please make sure you read through the instructions for pressure canning and genuinely understand them before you do it.  No shortcuts - don’t just wait until the steam is kinda puffing out, but wait until it is steady.  Don’t estimate times.  Don’t decide that a lid that doesn’t quite fit is good enough.  Do what they tell you.

5. Make sure your pressure canner (NOT a pressure cooker - you cannot safely can in a pressure cooker) has an accurate gauge.  This is not a big deal if your pressure canner has a weighted gauge (the kind that jiggle and make tons of noise), but it is absolutely essential if you have a dial gauge - take it to your county extension office and have them check it once a year, and make sure you know your elevation and use appropriate pressure for that elevation.  And if you have a dial gauge pressure canner, a study found that the standard should be not 10lbs pressure, but 11lbs - so if you see a recipe, even a recent one, that says “10lbs pressure” - put it at 11lbs.

If you buy a used pressure canner (and there are a lot of used ones out there), make sure you get a manual.  While old pressure canners are much safer than old pressure cookers, there is still a lot of pressure built up, and if you don’t use them as instructed, not only could your food not be safe, but you could get a face full of hot steam (which will burn you) or even be injured by parts going flying.  The companies that make pressure canners will have old manuals available, so if you buy a yard sale canner, the first thing you need to do is get the manual. The second thing is to have the gauge checked (worth doing once even if you have a weighted gauge) and to make sure that the gasket still fits tightly. If you see or feel steam persistently coming out along the gasket, you need a new one.  You can order a kit from the company to fix it, or find a different pressure canner.

SIX THINGS YOU ABSOLUTELY MUST NOT DO WHEN PRESSURE CANNING:

1. No jars larger than 1 quart - the food can’t get hot enough to be safe.

2. Never reuse jar lids when pressure canning - ever. Make sure the bands aren’t too rusty and aren’t bent, because the jar won’t seal.  Check the rims of the canning jars very carefully - nicks or bumps will ruin your seal.

 3. Don’t use rubber jars or anything other than the 2 piece canning lids.  TEST YOUR DIAL GAUGE CANNING KETTLE ANNUALLY - DON’T CAN UNTIL YOU HAVE TESTED.  Test a new kettle BEFORE you use it.    READ THE MANUAL - details vary a lot by brand.

4. Don’t raw pack unless you are sure it is safe - ”raw pack” means put food in the jars that has not been cooked.  There’s a general move in canning towards hot-pack only.  That means that the food should go into the jars hot.   You’ll see mixed recommendations about this - but it is always unsafe to raw pack: beets, greens of any kind, potatoes, sweet potatoes, squash, pumpkin, okra, tomato/okra mixes and stewed tomatoes, and honestly, it is safer not to raw pack at all.  Research has found that hot packed foods are often better textured and flavored as well.

5. Make sure that your heat remains even (if using a woodstove), that your stove is safe to can on (if using glass topped stoves), and that you don’t begin counting time until the steam has been exhausting for 10 full minutes, and that you are present to ensure that there are no sudden drops in temperature or other mishaps.

6. Remove jars carefully - don’t bang them or tip them. 

Honestly, if you find all this too overwhelming, no worries - human beings didn’t have pressure canning until fairly recently.  You can preserve a lot of food by root cellaring, season extension, water bath canning of high acid foods, dehydrating, lactofermenting, preserving in salt, alcohol and sugar, and freezing.  I encourage people to pressure can, I want people to try it - but if you don’t think you can do it correctly, you will be fine without it.

Ok, so here’s how you do it:

 Most of it is the same as water bath canning - you check the rims, you make sure the jars are have been cleaned in scalding water (boiling the jars is necessary if you are pressure canning for less than 15 minutes, and recommended anyway) and are clean, and that lids have been simmered. 

Make sure the food you are canning is really clean and dirt free (reduces the chance that you are putting a big helping of botulism, which lives in the soil, in your food).  Use the recipe you have chosen carefully.  You CAN safely reduce salt quantities when pressure canning - but not when waterbath canning.

Pack hot food into clean, hot jars (if you put it in cold jars you could have one explode on you).  Run a clean spatula (plastic or wood, not metal) along the edge of the jar to reduce air bubbles, and add more liquid if need be to compensate after the air comes out..  Wipe the rim with a clean cloth to make sure that no food gets under it.  Leave the recommended amount of headspace (ie, room for the seal to be made) - always a minimum of 1 inch when pressure canning, unless a current recipe says otherwise.

 Put on the hot lid, put the clean, hot metal band on, and screw down firmly, but not so tightly that no air can escape.

Put in the rack and and relevant amount of water (this varies by brand, so read the manual) in the canner.  Put the filled jars into the canning rack (never put any jars, using any technique, directly on the bottom of the canner).  Screw the lid on the cannter tightly. 

Make sure the petcock valves are open.  Turn up the heat - and PAY ATTENTION.  This is not something you can do while you do other things.  Watch for the steam, and then start timing when the flow is steady.  After 10 full minutes of steam steadily and rapidly coming out, the air trapped in the jars and canner should be exhausted.  If the air isn’t properly exhausted, the pressure may be inaccurate and the food may not be safe.

After 10 minutes of steady exhausting, close the vent.  Watch the pressure gauge until it reaches the correct pressure for YOUR ALTITUDE - if you live more than 1000 feet above sea level you MUST ADJUST THE CANNING PRESSURE to compensate.  Confirm your elevation before you begin canning and refer to the USDA chart for what is appropriate for your canner - if you have a weighted gauge, you can’t adjust it finely, if you have dial gauge, you can, so it matters both where you live and what kind of canner you have.

When you reach the desired pressure, adjust the heat on your stove to keep it at the same level - if it goes over, turn the heat down (or bank the fire) a bit, if it is under, turn up the heat.  Keep an eye on the gauge - I do dishes or other light work, but nothing very distracting. 

You begin timing when you hit the correct pressure, and you must be certain you were at the same pressure level the whole time.  When you have processed as long as required, take the canner off the heat, and let it cool.  Leave the canner alone otherwise - don’t vent pressure or do anything else.  It will take an hour or so to get down to normal pressure.

DO NOT open the canner until there is no steam coming out, even if you poke the regulator with a stick (not your hand).  A face full of hot steam can burn you seriously - don’t mess with it - make sure there is no more left.

Open the Petcock valve SLOWLY AND CAREFULLY.  Wait a bit, until the canner is even cooler.  Unlock the canner lid and remove it carefully.  Leave the jars alone for 10 minutes with the canner open, and use the jar lifter to carefully transfer them to a clean dishtowel, without tipping them.  Allow them to cool undisturbed.  You should hear the “ping” as the jars seal.

When they are entirely cool, check them for the seal.  If you press down on the center of the lid and feel any give or movement your jar is not sealed, and you can either reprocess the food (go through precisely the same procedure again with A NEW LID) or you can put it in the fridge and eat it soon.  You will lose a lot of nutritional value reprocessing, so I wouldn’t do this with anything like greens.

After 18 to 24 hours, wipe off the jars, remove the rings, label them and put them in a cool, dry place. 

When eating pressure canned food, check it when you open it.  If there is any reason for you to seriously doubt the safety of the food - if you don’t hear the popping sound that goes with a breaking vacuum when you open it, if there is an off smell, bulging around the lid, a vent of gas - throw it out, and not on the compost pile, but in the garbage.  DON’T TASTE IT!!!  Botulism has no taste or smell, but sometimes does cause bulging - but can exist simultaneously with other kinds of spoilage.  THROW IT OUT IF THERE IS ANY DOUBT.

There are some things - darkened bottom lids, discolored peaches, a pinkish color on some fruits that are normal - they are chemical reactions to canning and are not signs of trouble. I won’t list them all, I again, reiterate this is why you should read the books and websites carefully and several times until you are familiar with the information.

The USDA recommends that you boil any food that has been pressure canned, or anything that might conceivably support botulism (including tomato products without added acid) be boiled at at a rolling boil in a covered pan for 10 full minutes - and 1 additional minute if you are more than 1000 feet above sea level for each 1000 feet or fraction thereof (ie, if you live at 2200 feet you would boil your for 12 minutes).     Their recommendation is that it would be safest to do this every time, and that it should definitely be done if there is any doubt about your having used a safe canning technique.  It should not be necessary if you have done everything carefully and precisely.

Canned food will keep for many years, as long as the seal is intact, although there is a gradual loss of nutrients.  Jackie Clay at Backwoods Home regularly tests and uses canned food that is more than a decade old, but the general recommendation is no more than 3 years - but I wouldn’t hesitate to eat anything older, as long as the seal seems intact, there are no problems, and, more than five years out, I would boil it for the recommended time, just in case.

Happy Canning,

Sharon

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Sharon July 22nd, 2008

I’ve written a bunch of posts about the question of how to integrate food storage into your daily life.  Because honestly, not only am I not that interested in foods you buy and put in a bunker for 20 years ;-), but I think that is a really bad way to go about this.  You lose almost all the advantages of food storage if you don’t integrate it – you lose the advantage of saving money, you lose some of the nutritional value over the years, you lose the knowledge that in a crisis you won’t have to adapt psychologically or physically to a new diet, you lose the advantage of not having to make trips to the store, the advantage of having your comfort and ritual foods be made from things you can always get and afford.  It simply doesn’t make sense to buy food, or preserve food, or grow food and not eat it.

And yet, it happens all the time.  People buy a big reserve for an emergency, but don’t know how to make it tasty or to use it well, or it isn’t familiar, and somehow, they look up and five years have passed, and you are wondering whether the canned chicken is still edible several years post expiration – and you’ve just lost the time and energy and money you put into this.  And no wonder people who did this once don’t really get excited about doing it again.

The thing is, the kind of eating you do if you rely on food storage is fundamentally different than the way you eat when you rely on supermarkets.  You are generally using whole grains, because those have the maximum in nutritional value and storage ease.  Most Americans don’t use whole grains in their whole form.  For many people, this will mean eating fewer animal products – because most of the reasonably prices purchasable options are of low quality (usually industrially processed) and because storing a lot of meat by any mechanism other than “on the hoof” or “freezing” is expensive and/or time consuming.   Freezing is increasingly expensive, and sometimes unreliable – it is a good way to keep meat, but you risk the economic loss of a lot of high value meat in a power outage.   It is simply easier to store more beans and eat a bit less meat than it is to can 200 chickens – you can definitely do it, but you might not want to.

For people who have been used to eating all their produce fresh, this involves changing menus a bit – during the time when things don’t grow, you’ll be eating food grown by season extension, root cellared or long lasting fresh foods, and preserved foods.  What the balance of these things is depends on you – our family, for example, doesn’t honestly eat that many canned vegetables – we’d rather eat raw cabbage from the root cellar, but people who like canned green beans might prefer that to stir fried cabbage.

I’ve written about this before here: http://sharonastyk.com/2008/03/11/living-the-staple-diet/

But the easiest way to get started is simply to start making menus.  You start thinking “Ok, what can I make with what I’ve got?” Come up with as many things you like, and things you think you might like as you can. Look at cookbooks – if you are going to have a lot of squash to deal with, flip through the cookbooks you’ve got looking at squash recipes.  Hit the library and check out their choices, and use inter-library loan to get cookbooks on the relevant subjects.  And, of course, read online. 

Can you make familiar recipes while changing ingredients slightly so they become “pantry” meals – our family always has the ingredients for certain meals in the house – we automatically stock up on these as our stores get depleted, because then we’re never caught out if someone suddenly stays for dinner or we’re out of ingredients.

Think about substitutions – most classic recipes already contain the history of substitution written into them.  The cake you make with vanilla?  It was probably flavored with rosewater when your great-grandmother made it, since vanilla was expensive and tropical.  Great-Grandma probably often substituted one kind of flour for another, used vinegar instead of lemon and a host of other techniques.  Many recipes grew up in regions where they were constantly adapted to one place or another  -paella might have used freshwater frogs and snails, along with meats available in that region, while coastal paellas used fish.  There are hundreds of recipes for pancakes in the world – because you can make pancakes out of almost anything, and people have.  Anyone who says that there’s only one way to make something (Unless they are talking about clam chowder, when there really is only one way to make it, and anyone using tomatoes is evil ;-)) is just plain wrong.  I avoid cookbooks and recipes sites that speak of the one true way to make food.  That’s not to say some things don’t taste better than others, but with the exception of some fundamentally uneuphonious combinations, often things can be made to taste not funny with a bit of work, even with changed ingredients.

This is one of those practicing things – getting familiar with the food and new ways of cooking it, gradually integrating it into your diet and family life.  It does take work and practice.  It is also worth it.

Sharon

• Classes , Food Storage
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