Do you can your food to save money? Many people feel it captures the flavor of the food. When I was growing up my mother had an entire pantry of canned foods from preserves to vegetables. In the olden days, people even canned meat due to lack of refrigeration. What is your basic method for canning? The simplest method of canning is often called water bath canning. You fill jars with acidic food such as tomatoes, berries or cucumbers in vinegar, cover them with Lids and boil them in an open pan of water until a seal forms under the lid. This action forces air out of the food and out of the jar and creates a vacuum in an acidic environment in which bacteria will not thrive. Water bath canning can provide you with a number of delicious foods, including jams, jellies, whole tomatoes and pickles, and it’s a great place to start. A more advanced method is pressure canning. (This is the type my mother did). It requires a little more skill and some specialized equipment. I have done some short-term canning: meaning I have canned items that I intend to use or give away for immediate use. You can boil your jam and then put them in sterilized jars, put the lids on the jars, flip them upside down and let them cool The jars (even re-used jars like for mayonnaise) will still seal, giving them a longer shelf life. You have to make sure those lids are really sanitized though and you might even opt to put saran wrap over the mouth before putting the lid on. This type of canning doesn't have the life of 'real canning' though and so if you keep it on the shelf for too long and still give them away you risk some mold forming on the top (very embarrassing.) What are your methods and why do you do it? What are some of your favorite ways to can?
In our culture, drying is the most common way to preserve food for future consumption. Well, our country is surrounded by water and we sometimes have over fishing and so instead of wasting it.. we dry it.
The process of canning food can be time-consuming. Everyone in our household is always on the go with so many obligations to attend to. Rather than canning food, we buy canned goods instead. Also, to prevent food from spoiling as well as to extend their shelf life, we store them on the fridge.
I've never canned food myself, though my great grandma and my husband's grandma both did/do...it seems that it can be quite time consuming but it also seems that it can go along way to saving money and being more self-sustaining too. I like the idea of it, and I would like to learn one of these days, seems it would be a good skill to know at the very least.
I haven't canned stuff for long term storage since the 80's, when my grandparents were still around. They came over straight from Italy and planted their own garden and canned their own food. It was a lot of work though, but between my grandmother, and grandfather, as well as my mom and dad and my siblings, we would all pitch in. We all have fond memories of all the home made canned tomato sauce we used to make - that stuff was like gold around our household, and whenever we would have guests over to eat. Sadly, I don't have the space, time or energy to plant my own garden these days. As for canning, I do sort term canning, but it's mostly just to flavor or change the texture of stuff, such as making home made pickles. I also occasionally make home made fruit preserves in my pressure cooker too, for fun. But neither is particularly budget friendly. By the time I buy fresh cucumbers, and all the pickling ingredients and cheese cloth to make home made pickles, I'm way over what I would have spent buying them in the store already made. It's even more expensive for fruit preserves, since fresh berries cost an arm and a leg, and you need quite a bit to make a small jars worth. If I had a back yard with some raspberry bushes, or a bunch of strawberries growing, I would possibly make more preserves since that would be more cost effective.
