Friday, October 20, 2017

Canning a la Bettina or, Do You Feel Lucky?

Introduction

Home canning plays a large role in Bettina’s domestic economy. Jams, marmalade, fruits, vegetables—anything that can be cooked and crammed into a jar is fair game. So important is canning to the editors of A Thousand Ways To Please A Husband that numerous vignettes feature our heroine huddled over a vat of bubbling Mason jars—usually with a rapt audience at her elbow.

No invitation to play tennis or go shopping nor the arrival of guests or sweltering weather can deter Bettina from her mission: to can whatever she can lay her hands on and show her husband that “Bettina knows how to keep house!”

Part 1

A Pocket History of Canning

One can’t help but pity Napoleon’s soldiers. Already condemned to slogging through the chest-high snows of Russia, they were expected to do so on a diet of food canned by the earliest and most primitive methods.

Canning, a method of preserving food by sealing it in airtight containers, was the brainchild of Frenchman Nicolas Appert. Hoping to win the his government’s bounty of 12000 francs for an inexpensive method of preserving food, he submitted his idea in 1806 and was awarded the prize four years later.

The first commercial canning vessels were fragile glass containers and, later, more durable but extremely unwieldy iron cans. The switch a few years later to tin-plated iron and then steel cans made the new method of preserving food more practical and led to its growing popularity in both Europe and North America.

But glass containers came back in vogue in 1858 when John L. Mason patented a thick-walled version suitable for non-industrial use. Improvements in lid design also helped to make home canning an international movement, and by World War 1 a majority of the US population ate home canned food on a regular basis.

Home Canning Methods

Presently only three home canning methods rate the USDA’s stamp of approval:

Water Bath Canning
Certainly the simplest of canning methods, this technique is considered suitable for foods with a high acid content such as fruits, jams, pickles, and tomatoes (if additional acidifiers such as lemon juice have been added).
Basically, cooked food is poured into warm jars, sealed with screw-type lids, and put in a vat of boiling water for a specified amount of time (generally ten minutes or more).

Pressure Canning
To be used for low acid foods such as vegetables, meat, seafood, and dairy products.
Again, as with the water bath method, warmed jars are filled with cooked food and sealed. But here the filled jars are placed in a pressure canner (generally a metal kettle fitted with a tight-locking lid and gaskets) which, thanks to trapped steam, is capable of reaching temperature of 240 degrees Fahrenheit and higher.

Steam Canning
Steam canning is the new kid on the block—this method was only approved of by the USDA in 2015.
Generally foods that can safely be canned using the water bath method (fruits, jams, pickles) can also be processed in a steam canner.
Once again jars are filled with cooked food, sealed, and then placed on a rack in the canner. As with the pressure canner steam collects in the enclosed vessel, but because steam canners aren’t airtight the pressure can’t rise and the temperature go above 212 F.

And For Those Who Spurn Modern Methods And Prefer To Wing It…

…meet some of the Cowboy Canner’s most reliable pals:

Pseudomonas (bacteria)

Sclerotia (mold)

Aspergillus (mold with a sweet tooth—usually found in jellies and jams)

And of course...

Clostridium botulinum

The Big B.

Botulism.


(End of the line without aggressive medical treatment—Mr. B prefers to take no prisoners. Invite him for a meal and expect to form a hospital friendship lasting for weeks or months with your new best friend, Mr. Ventilator).

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