In preparing to write this article – and at the same time, preparing to teach a workshop in our community garden – on Homemade Borscht, I asked a lotta friends to tell me about their Borsch. Every lover of borsch has “their” variation. There are so many different variations that its hard to know what someone else is talking about when they use the word, and how they can all be called the same name! Some people insist on a brothy soup, some people prefer a thicker version. Some use meat broth, some feel that an authentic borsch must be meatless. Some use a cream at the end to cut the acid. Some do not.
Food is part of culture and identity – whether it be in a family, a community, a region, a religious group, or an entire country. Food can be shared and can unite people in the sharing. While there may be regional differences, people from all over eastern Europe are familiar with “Borsch” or “Borscht”. Ukrainian, Polish, German, Romanian, Croatian, Georgian, Russian and others all have their ‘authentic’ versions, but the general consensus is that the dish originated in Ukraine.
People move, and food travels with them. Food moves more easily as long as it moves horizontally (east-west) where climates remain similar. Food is an important part of tradition and memories, and being able to keep favourite dishes a part of one’s life is valuable in adjusting to the many changes that come with a new life in a new country. One cannot over estimate the importance of the food people have been raised with, and families can be quite rigid about not messing with ‘gramma’s recipe’.
In the last part of the 19th century a general exodus from Eastern Europe into western Europe, Australia and North American began in earnest for those seeking a better life. Dan’s family came from Germany, some spending a generation in Poland before coming to Canada. My ancestors came from Denmark, Sweden, England, Wales, Scotland and France. It is always difficult to move to another part of the world, but the travails of immigrants in those days were intense, including breaking land and homesteading. There was much hardship. Both Dan and I feel a deep debt of gratitude for their sacrifices – which made it possible for us to be born here, in this land of plenty and relative safety. And yes, there are still a residue of favourite family dishes among them which have lasted long enough to be part of our family’s heritage.
Let’s get the spelling out of the way first. Borsch or Borscht? The ‘T’ comes from the Yiddish transliteration into English since it seems that the dish was introduced to the west by Jewish refugees fleeing Eastern Europe. So both spellings are equally correct, and no wonder there are so many recipe versions of it. Jewish refugees to the US. Ukrainian refugees to western Canada. Polish, German and Russian refugees throughout the western world. They had one thing in common – the food they all grew in their home countries: root crops, cabbage and dill. These vegetables grew equally well in North American soil and climate (especially in the northern parts) so it was natural that the dish would be reproduced here. Every part of it was something the average farm in the northern hemisphere could produce at home. The ingredients were cheap, plentiful and dependable. The soup was hearty, nutritious and satisfying. How could it lose?
Does Borsch had to be red? In a word – ‘no’. I’ve seen ‘green borsch’, but that’s blasphemous so I’m not gonna talk about that other than to say it is generally a spinach soup – so where it gets off referring to itself as ‘borsch’ is a mystery. Borst IS red. In my mind, beets make borsch RED. If you don’t like beets, don’t make borsch. If you make borsch without beets, you made soup. Might be a good soup, but find a new name, because “borsch” is red. There. Glad we got that settled.
So what is IN borsch? Keep in mind that traditionally borsch is a peasant soup. A good ol’ downhome, country folk hearty beet soup. So that means it had the foods that were easy to come by. Potatoes. Onions and garlic. Carrots. Cabbage. Maybe celery for some. Maybe kale for some. In later years, as it traveled west – peppers and tomatoes; a hundred years ago, tomatoes were not so plentiful in north eastern Europe among farm folk. BEETS. Vinegar. Dill. Sometimes meat, sometimes not – depending on availability. Sometimes sour cream.
So how do you find out which type of borsch you prefer? Well, there are no shortcuts. You have to try a few to narrow it down. Personally, I like a borsch with lots in it. I’m okay with a more brothy base, but I rarely make it that way, because Dan prefers a thicker soup. So I make my brothy soup, then when its nearly ready, I take about 1/4 of it and puree it in the blender. Adding the pureed portion back to the pot makes it thicker and more substantial, and my family prefers it that way. You do you. Make it a few different ways – but keep the basics in place.
What are the basics? BEETS. Added near the end to keep the colour beautiful. Onions and garlic. Other root vegetables like potatoes and carrots. Don’t hesitate to add parsnips if you have them. Cabbage. Of course. Some sort of acid – lemon juice of vinegar. In the spirit of authenticity I do not use lemon juice because I am pretty sure no Ukrainian Baba had lemons in her kitchen. The acid is said to keep the red vibrant, and who am I to question wisdom of the ages? Maybe it does, but I like the flavour enhancement anyway. Its not the same without it. Broth. The kind is completely up to you. Beef broth, chicken broth, vegetable broth, water. Whatever you have on hand. I generally use chicken broth or chicken bouillon – simply because it’s light and flavourful. Tomatoes or tomato paste. A relatively ‘new’ (but welcome) addition as Ukrainians wouldn’t have had access to tomatoes on the prairies a hundred years ago. Dill. Other than the onions and garlic, dill is the primary seasoning. Don’t add it too soon though because its a delicate flavour and you might lose some of it’s beauty.
How to make it
1. precook your beets There are many ways to precook your beets, but the easiest is to clean them then place in a covered roasting pan or wrap them in tin foil, and roast in a 400 degree oven for about an hour. Test for tenderness every 15 minutes after 45 minutes. The timing is going to completely depend on how big your beets are – could be an hour, could be more. When you can insert a fork easily, they’re done. Remove from heat and when slightly cooled, peel.
2. Chop your onions and garlic and sauté in oil of your choice over medium heat till translucent. Stir frequently to prevent scorching, while dicing fresh potatoes. *hint: yes, you can add your onions and garlic to the broth mix at the same time as everything else. I prefer to saute mine first as I think it adds to the flavour and I like a more caramelized texture, also it glazes the pot – adding a roasted taste.
IF, you’re going to add meat, either precook it or add it to your onions at this point to brown.
3. Add potatoes to pot and sauté with the onions for a few minutes. Add salt and pepper at this point. Add broth or water, stir well and bring to a boil while you’re chopping cabbage and carrots.
4. Add chopped or sliced cabbage – it seems people have strong opinions on which is best. You do you. (Personally I prefer chunks to slices in a soup.) Stir and add carrots. Bring back to a boil, then reduce heat and gently simmer till all is tender. At this point, add additional Iate-summer vegetables as desired: parsnips or kale perhaps.
5. Add vinegar. Start with 1/2 cup, then add more later if you want. Easier to put more in than it is to remove so start with less and adjust as desired. You can use plain white vinegar. I like to use a flavoured vinegar, perhaps a basil or chive blossom vinegar.
6. Continue to add broth as needed to keep the soup gently simmering. Add tomatoes if desired. Adding tomatoes, tomato paste or tomato powder adds that familiar light acidy taste of tomatoes while improving the texture and colour. I never buy tomato paste – preferring tomato powder so that I have more control on how much I want to use with no waste. In this case however, I generally have a lot of fresh tomatoes in the late summer early fall – so I’ll choose my ripest tomatoes. Continue to cook until tomatoes are fully incorporated and lost their shapes.
7. When your vegetables are tender, add your peeled and chopped cooked beets. Stir well to incorporate colour and let sit for a few minutes. You could be done at this point, ready to add your dill and serve up a nice brothy soup. Or you could take one more step to thicken your soup as I do.
8. Ladle out two cups of soup into a blender, and puree. Pour back into your pot and stir well. If desired, ladle out two more cups and do the same thing, stirring back into the soup. This step is completely subjective. You’re looking for a texture, colour and consistency that you prefer. Remove from heat.
9. Add fresh, chopped dill weed (the green part) and stir well to incorporate. Lots of dill. What does that mean? How do I know? How much do you like dill? Maybe a cup? Maybe more or less. I add at least a cup, but easier to add more later than remove, so start slowly and taste along the way. . Adjust salt and pepper as desired and remove from heat. At this point you can add some sour cream to the pot, or save that for individuals to add to their own bowls.
10. I always save the sour cream to be added to individual bowls at the table with additional fresh dill, because I like sour cream and Dan prefers without.
So much of what your borsch is going to look like will depend on individual tastes. There’s no point in making it a specific way if your family prefers something different. For instance, I know people who add caraway seed to their soup at the simmering stage. Caraway is the one spice that I do not like, so that’s never been a consideration of mine. But its worth trying different things from time to time – you never know how it might add to your over all dish.
Serve with fresh bread or buns. Some nice fresh sourdough served alongside is amazing. Or some nice dark rye bread.
I’ll provide a sample recipe with suggested amounts below for beginners to have some ideas of where to start.
Borsch is a meal in itself, especially served with bread. But serving it alongside a plate of perogies, cabbage rolls and kubasa would be the perfect winter meal.
recipe for 6-8 servings 1 medium onion chopped 2-3 cloves garlic minced 1 large potato diced 3-4 cups chopped fresh cabbage 6 cups broth or water salt and pepper to taste 4 carrots peeled and chopped into nice big pieces nice big handful of fresh kale chopped 1/2 cup – 1 cup chopped fresh dill (reserve some to use at the table) fresh sour cream for directions, refer to numbered instructions above
Pour remaining soup into jars to refrigerate or to give away. That’s a wonderful thing about soup, its a great gift for someone who could use a meal tonight, or its easy for them to pull out of the fridge tomorrow.
Home Canning (and by that we really mean home ‘bottling‘) is the easiest, most reliable and economical way to preserve food at home. It can be done in your own kitchen, doesn’t require a whole lot of pricey equipment, and has a reasonably long shelf life – up to two years. Yes, I know you know someone who’s had their home canned food for eight years (we all do), and that supposedly “it’s still good”. To that I repeat: “the shelf life is UP to two years“. My suggestion is strongly not to push it too much past then.
Fact: Food is Food. You cannot prevent it from spoiling, you can only slow it down. Canning it will preserve it, but not forever.
Don’t expect home canned food to be what it cannot be, and everything will work out fine. It’s reality is that the nutritional value of canned foods (commercially or home canned) is about 40% of what it was when it went into the canner. I admit I was super disappointed when I learned that fact, mostly because I raised my children on home canned food, especially fruit, and I thought I was doing the best thing I could for them. In reality, I really was doing the best I could for them, but when one gives it some thought, those peaches are in boiling water for 40+ minutes. What did we expect? After the recommended shelf life of two years, we can expect that the food will lose more of its nutritional value, which is why I highly advocate not trying to keep it past that suggested time. Having said that, if something gets away from you and you’re into the third year, don’t sweat it – just use the food.
As with any type of food storage, the bottom line is to STORE WHAT YOU EAT, and EAT WHAT YOU STORE. If you do that, you’re gonna be okay, if you do not – you will end up wasting a lotta money. Canning isn’t magic. It cannot make something perishable last indefinitely.
So what’s the point? And why should I can?
Because it’s a good way of extending the valuable useable time of perishable food, preserving good and nutritious food today, to use tomorrow. Instead of preparing for immediate consumption, you are preparing food that you can store for months! Make no mistake, canning IS cooking, but it allows us to capture the best flavour at the peak of season—to enjoy all-year long! Garden Roasted Tomato Sauce, Homemade Garden Salsa, a bowl of peaches, rhubarb to go on your morning oatmeal, raspberry jam – all in the middle of winter! THESE are why we can!
Back when my kids were young we canned a LOT of fruit. When the price was good we’d buy a 100+ pounds of peaches (our favourite) and pears, maybe 50 pounds of cherries, apricots or plums. I’d can half of the plums and dehydrate the rest. Though I did the bulk of the work during the day it was a big job, so it had to be a family affair. Dan always pitched in when he was home and we required the kids to help out. And yes, I got backlash from time to time (especially from one of our boys who shall remain unnamed at this point), but I flat out insisted that everybody help. We all enjoyed the end result of having peaches with breakfast in February, so it only made sense that we all pitch in to make that a possibility. At some point, when this one un-named boy was a teenager, he put his foot down and refused to be involved in the project anymore. HE was not peeling peaches (or pears or whatever it was). He disliked the work and he’d had enough; it was too much work for him. He was too big to argue with so I told him that was fine, but as with anything there are always consequences, and the consequence to this choice would be that he’d be giving up enjoying the “fruits of our labour”. He couldn’t expect to eat peaches that someone else did all the work to put on the table. I reminded him about how much he enjoyed eating peaches in the winter. I also reminded him that the likelihood of me forgetting in February that he didn’t help in the summer was next to zero. He may have thought about it for all of thirty seconds, and in the end he trusted me, and put on an apron. I’m not gonna pretend he was happy about the job after that, but we never had that same conversation again.
My daughter on the other hand, looked forward to “canning season”. It was just as much work for her, but there was something about her that made that work enjoyable in its own way. My other boys were fine to pitch in and participate, it was after all – the means to the end we all wanted: fruit in the winter. Many memories were made in a hot and sticky kitchen on those long summer days. One summer I went away for a week with a friend. Sarah was 14 years old, and diligently went through the grocery store sales flyers in my absence. At one point she saw that peaches were a ‘good’ price and she believed they would likely not still be that price when I came home. With urgency, she told her dad that he must pick up several boxes of peaches on his way home from work the next day – which of course he did. While I drove home from New Brunswick with Peggy, Sarah and Dan canned those peaches from beginning to the end. I was amazed when I got home, and kinda still am as I look back on it. I was very proud of her, and I wish that I had expressed that better than I did. I was proud not only that she felt it her ‘motherly’ duty to can peaches in my absence, but also that she took it upon herself to judge when the price was right, make the decision to buy, judge when they were ripe enough to bottle, and then take charge of actually getting it done. Dan wisely let her do all that, and then in typical Dan style, he put on an apron and began peeling peaches.
the method
The method is to use high temperatures to kill microorganisms and inactivating enzymes that would cause food to spoil. The heating process pushes air from the jars, creating a vacuum seal as they cool. Without oxygen the bacteria, yeasts, and mould will not grow and the food will last a lot longer.
There are two methods: hot water canning, and pressure canning. They are NOT interchangeable. This article deals with HOT WATER canning. How do you know which method is used for which type of food? It’s pretty straight forward: high acid foods require the hot water method – the easiest. What are high acid foods? Most types of fruit and berries. Some suggestions to consider: Apples: apple juice, apple jelly, apple butter, apple sauce, apple pieces, crab apples … Apricots, apricot jam, Berries whole, berry jam, berry syrup, Cherries whole, cherry jam, cherry syrup, cherry juice, Cranberries whole, cranberry sauce, cranberry jelly, cranberry juice, Grapes, grape juice, grape jelly, Grapefruit and Orange sections, Citrus marmalade, Mixed fruit combinations (cocktail), Nectarines, Peaches, Pears, Pineapple, Plums, Rhubarb
adding acid in the form or lemon juice or vinegar
To most fruits I add a Tablespoon of lemon juice to a pint (500 ml), and 2 Tablespoons lemon juice to a quart (or litre), just as an added precaution. I don’t bother with rhubarb because that is acidic enough.
Tomatoes (yes tomato is a fruit): cold pack whole or cut up, tomato sauce. Less ripe tomatoes are more acidic. Very ripe tomatoes are sweeter and less acidic. (Can them before they’re very ripe and soft.) I add 2-4 T vinegar to my tomatoes, depending on how ripe they are. Sometimes I use flavoured vinegar like basil vinegar – just for an added flavour that we like. Your choice.
Low acid foods require the higher temperatures that only using a pressure canner can provide. They include ALL vegetables and proteins.
Hot water canning involves boiling your fruit in glass jars in a big pot of water. There are pots specifically designed for this- called water bath canners – that consist of a large DEEP pot, a rack insert, and a lid. When purchasing, ensure that you have room for a quart jar to have at least two inches of water covering and plenty of room for water to boil. For small batch canning, I often just use my pasta pot because it checks all the boxes and its in my kitchen cupboard already so its handy. It is good for all my smaller jars: my pints, half pints and smaller that I may be using for jams or syrups.
If I am canning quart jars I use a bigger stock pot that I keep up high on my pantry shelf, so not easy to retrieve but not terribly inconvenient either. I can process up to seven quarts in this pot so its perfect! The important thing to remember when repurposing non-canning-specific pots is to put something on the bottom to prevent your jars from being directly on the bottom of your pot. A rack that will fit your pot will help keep the bottles from ‘jumping’ around when the water is fast boiling, preventing unnecessary trauma and possible breakage. If you have a rack that fits then go ahead and use it (I picked up a few different sizes from a thrift store years ago). Otherwise, use a folded dish towel in the bottom of your pot. You’re mostly trying to protect the bottles from banging around during boiling.
Boiling water is 212 degrees Fahrenheit, sufficient for high acid foods like most fruits, pickles, tomatoes, sauerkraut, relishes, salsas, and all sorts of jams. It is the acidity of these foods helps preserve them safely without the need of higher temperatures and pressure.
Supplies
Canning jars: not to be confused with single use jars. These are jars intended to be used at extremely high temperatures. Use ONLY clean jars without cracks or nicks in them.
Lids and rings (screw bands): those that are made for the particular jars you’re using. Do NOT reuse them. They are single use only.
Water bath canner: for water-bath canning, it isn’t necessary to purchase a special canner as long as you have a pot that has a fitted lid and is large enough to fully immerse the jars in water by 2 inches—and that will allow the water to boil when covered. You’ll also need a rack that fits inside the pot or canner.
Jar lifter: very important, this tool is relatively inexpensive but indispensable. It is essentially large tongs to assist you in putting jars into HOT water, and in removing them again out of boiling water.
Wide mouth Funnel: sure makes it easier to fill your jars without spilling and making a mess. You can buy plastic or stainless steal. I have both, but I prefer my stainless steal one. I use it for much more than camping – almost daily, for lots of applications.
Utensils: large spoon or ladle to fill jars, and a simple table knife to remove air bubbles.
Clean dish cloth to wipe jar rims, and clean dish towels upon which to place you processed jars.
10 Tips to Review Before you Start
Always use the FRESHEST produce possible – in peak condition. Overripe fruits are lower in acid and are already in a state of decomposing. It is important to know that produce begins to deteriorate IN THE HOUR it’s harvested, so fresh means AS IMMEDIATE AFTER HARVEST as you can get it.
Gather all your ingredients and equipment beforehand, so that they’re at your finger tips. It is so frustrating to realize at the point of no return, that you don’t have that extra bag of sugar or additional lids you thought you had.
It is critical to pay attention to “CLEAN” throughout every part of the process. Freshly CLEAN your jars in HOT soapy water – rinsed with hot water and set aside with a clean cloth cover. Sterilizing jars is good, but current advice is that if the food is going to be processed in a boiling water bath for at least 10 minutes, sterilizing is not necessary. CLEAN however is not negotiable; pay attention to it. If you have a dishwasher – running your clean jars through a cycle should get the job done. In years gone by, I always had my CLEAN jars in a hot oven till I used them, but I hardly ever take the time to do that anymore.
Use REAL canning jars, screw bands, and lids – intended for canning. Jars: Many jars that we may recycle are intended only as ‘single-use’ jars. They were not made to go in high temperatures and are liable to break. They also do not fit regular canning lids which are critical. Those single-use jars may be suitable for dry storage, but they are NOT suitable for canning. Lids: Use only NEW lids, not previously used. New lids have a rubber inner ring intended to seal during the process. They do not need to be heated to activate the sealing compound before placing on the jar top, but I usually heat them anyway – by placing them either in a pan of water that I bring to a boil, or by dipping them into the boiling hot water bath with a lid holder that I have for that purpose. This is just one further way of ensuring they’re CLEAN.
5. “Head Space” is the air space from the top of the contents of the to the top of the jar; it is important to ensure the jar seals properly. Head space and can vary depending on the food (usually between 1/4 inch to 1 inch but on average – 1/2 inch). During the boiling process, contents of your jars expand, and if the head space is too little for the contents (bigger contents like peaches, pears or tomatoes for example) the contents may expand into headspace and jeopardize the clean seal of the lid. Insufficient head space may even cause the contents to boil over and escape the lid, causing a big mess in your canner and again, jeopardizing the seal. You could leave up to an inch to prevent those contents from expanding into the headspace. It is important to remember that even liquid expands when it boils.
So what about too much headspace? If too much headspace is left, the food on the top may discolour in time. That in itself isn’t a terrible thing, but in the case of too much air, processing time may be inadequate to push out all the oxygen within the jar, again preventing a good vacuum and therefore a proper seal. Having said that, I’ve had times when the syrup in my fruit boiled over (having not left sufficient head space) and yet the jar sealed. I’ve had times that everything seemed perfect and yet the stupid jar didn’t seal. I’ve had time that I left too much head space and the jar sealed and times that I had too much when it didn’t seal. The bottom line is that we’re looking for optimum protection from potential spoilage through aerobic bacteria (an organism that can survive and grow in an ‘oxygenated’ environment) so we want to do our best to follow proper canning procedures. In principle, following the procedures closely will leave us with no oxygen in the jar. We’ll know we accomplished this when the jar seals.
6. It is VERY important is to wipe the jar rim and threads clean before putting on the lid and screw band. Having any fruit or syrup residue along the top will prevent a good seal with the lid. When putting on the ring / screw band – don’t tighten more than finger tight. It’s job is not to seal the jar, it is to keep the lid in place while the jar is processed and during the cooling process when the vacuum is complete. After 24 hours the ring can be removed to reuse on other jars.
7. Using the jar lifter, place each jar on the rack in the boiling water. I always put the jars in at a slight diagonal to prevent a possible air bubble creating in the slight dome on the jar bottom. Make sure that the jars are covered by at least 1 to 2 inches of water. Cover the pot with lid and bring the pot to the boil. Start counting processing time once the water has returning to a boil. I usually turn the heat down a bit to keep it at a steady rolling boil but not a furious boil. Allowing the water to hard boil at high heat the whole time, may cause some water loss. If that happens simply top it up with small amounts of new water making sure you don’t pour directly onto the jars.
8. When processing time is done, turn off the heat and remove the canner lid venting the steam away from yourself. Remove each jar with the jar lifter and place upright on a nice thick clean tea towel to cool. Keep a space between them of 1 to 2 inches. Let jars cool 12-24 hours. Do NOT make the mistake of tightening the rings as soon as you remove your jars from the canner. It’s typical that the rings may loosen a bit during processing – that’s okay. Adjusting them while the jars are hot may disturb the seal and interfere with successful sealing. Overcome that rookie temptation.
9. How do you know a jar has sealed? Another rookie temptation I’ve seen people give into is pushing the centre of the lid when the jar is still hot. Their intention is to “finish the seal”, but that is not what happens. The natural ‘ping’ of the jar sealing on its own is indication that it’s sealed. By interfering you don’t have that indication and you will not know if it has properly sealed. It is important to test each jar to ensure it’s sealed properly before putting it away. Wait until the jars have cooled at least 12 hours and up to 24 hours before you test the seals. You may notice that the level of the contents is lower. Relax. It’s okay and it is what it is.
A vacuum is created during the sealing process, by drawing the oxygen out of the jar – pulling the lid down, forming a shallow depression in the centre of it. So what you’re looking for is a concaved lid. * Gently press the centre of the lid with your finger. If it is properly sealed there will be no give, Great. If the lid springs down and up when you press and release your finger, there is no seal, Shucks! Don’t despair. It happens sometimes, especially in the beginning when you’re learning. Put that jar in the fridge and eat the contents in the next few days.
In general, your canned foods should last all year long, as long as they are stored in a cool, dry place. When you open your jar, you should have considerable resistance and need a spoon or table knife to loosen it. It should POP audibly when the seal is broken. If it opens too easily – like with your hand, the lid is NOT sealed and that’s a sure sign that air has gotten in. Not good. Do not keep it. Dispose of immediately.
What signs am I looking for down the road, that a seal has been jeopardized? *a broken seal (the lid is no longer concave) – this is likely because it wasn’t a good seal to begin with; *a bulging lid (in home canned or commercially canned food) is a sign of spoilage; *a lid (not the outside ring) that is corroded or rusty is a sign of spoilage; *when you open your jars or cans and see mould or bubbles or cloudiness, its a sign of spoilage. In all these cases – dispose of the contents immediately.
10. One sign that your jars have sealed properly is the gentle “popping” or “pinging” sound” you hear as the jars cool. The wonderful sound of jars ‘pinging’ is music to the ears of anyone who home cans. It tells you “Job Well Done!” Now all you have to do is wipe up the mess and wait for the next round. Jars that don’t seal can NOT be stored. Put them in the fridge and use within a few days.
It might sound at this point, that its all problems but in actual fact MOST jars seal, so relax – you’re doing the right thing. Home canning is still a good way to preserve food. Because you canned, you can enjoy the taste of summer fruits (and vegetables if you pressure can) in the middle of winter, and you can also customize recipes to suit your family’s taste preferences and dietary needs.
The biggest concern of any canning is botulism poisoning. Botulism is an illness caused by the botulinum toxin. Back in my grandmothers’ days, botulism was a real thing and something most people knew to be fearful of, but not always how to avoid it. Even today I hear people say things like “My grandmother canned all her vegetables in a hot water canner and they never had a problem.” That makes my blood run chill. I am ashamed to say I was one who blatantly (and I might add – foolishly) disregarded my father’s warning about botulism and canning vegetables without a pressure canner. I didn’t take it seriously in those days and I’m sure I caused some him some unnecessary stress by my flippant attitude. It’s a dangerous game to play. People die from stupid attitudes like that. My father’s sister died of typhoid fever when she was just 15 years old. It was scary and people didn’t always know how to avoid it. I expect that might have had something to do with him being especially vigilant about foodbourne or waterbourne illnesses. I’m glad I smartened up, but I do regret the worry I caused him.
In actual fact, the bacteria that causes botulism occurs naturally in soil and normally doesn’t cause a threat to people. However, they are a very hardy type of bacteria and thrive in LOW-ACID, low-oxygen environments, like those we create when we can foods. When food is canned improperly, the bacteria grows and produces their deadly toxin botulin, making the food unfit for consumption of humans or animals alike. 65% of botulism outbreaks have been traced to home-processed foods.
It is critical that the environment inside the bottled or canned goods be INhospitable to the bacteria by canning only high ACID foods at normal water boiling temperatures of 212 degrees Fahrenheit or 100 degrees Celcius. Low acid foods must be processed at 240 degrees F which can only be accomplished using pressure. For this reason, I habitually add a tablespoon of vinegar to my tomatoes and a tablespoon of lemon juice to all my fruit as an additional acid precaution (in honour of my dad).
I no longer can in the same quantity I used to. For one, I don’t have five growing kids living in my house anymore. I no longer buy fruit for the purpose of canning. I preserve the EXCESS of what I produce myself, and sometimes produce that is given to me – produce that we have more of than we can enjoy FRESH. The “excess” of that produce.
Another reason I don’t can in the same quantity anymore is that there is no such thing as ‘a good price’ for the fruit I used to can so much of. This makes it necessary to be more creative in what and how I preserve, and more ready to take opportunities when they come our way. It makes it more important for me to have a home garden and to make friends with the fruits and vegetables that want to grow in my part of the world. It makes it all the more important for me to find good nutritious food in times of plenty and to learn to preserve the excess of it for times of less.
And yet another reason I don’t can in the same quantity that I used to, is that about 12 years ago I discovered freeze dried food which has an extended shelf life and higher nutritional value. Not everything is suitable to be freeze dried, just as not everything is suitable for canning, drying or freezing. I love that I have the flexibility to take advantage of all preserving options. Click HERE to see other methods of preserving, and the freeze dried food I prefer.
In many ways it was easier back then, when I could count on finding peaches for a good price every July or August. All told, thousands of man-hours were spent in my kitchen by those who would eat later as well as today. I am glad I took those opportunities to learn the skill. I am glad for all that practice. I believe it is an important skill to have.
So go ahead, can the apples that you grow, cherries or plums. Find some recipes for jams that sound good to you, or that friends share with you. I’ll share some of my favourite jam recipes in another post. Find some recipes for sauces and salsa – I’ll share my favourites in another post. One of the fruits I can the most is tomatoes (and yes – tomato is a fruit). I fresh-can them and I roast them in the oven to can for sauces later. I have also begun canning rhubarb – never thought I’d see the day, but we love it in the winter this way.
I hope you’ll tell me about your experiences, including your successes and failures. Failure is just another lesson learned about how not to do it again. I’ve had lots of those – you likely will too.
