Sales are up 30% this year (canning supplies)

Putting Up Produce: Yes, You Can

By ANA CAMPOY
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703787204574449160079437536.html?mod=loomia&loomia_si=t0:a16:g4:r5:c0:b0
Pots are boiling on every burner and the kitchen counters are covered with a jumble of bowls, measuring cups and jars. Steam fills the house with the scent of vinegar and caramelizing sugar.

We're canning.

This two-century-old technique of preserving food—or "putting up," in canning-speak—is making a big comeback.

The worst recession in decades and a trend toward healthier eating are inspiring many Americans to grow their own food. Now the harvest season is turning many of these gardeners into canners looking to stretch the bounty of the garden into the winter.
Canning 101: Preserving Food in a Pickle

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Matt Nager for The Wall Street Journal

Canning statistics are hard to come by, but Elizabeth Andress, project director of the National Center for Home Food Preservation, a government-funded program that advises consumers on how to safely preserve food, says requests for canning classes are flooding in at a rate not seen in many years.

Hundreds of cooks gathered at the end of August in simultaneous countrywide canning fests organized by Canning Across America, a new Web site for canning devotees (www.canningacrossamerica.com). At Jarden Corp.'s Jarden Home Brands—the maker of Kerr and Ball brand jars—sales of canning equipment are up 30% this year through mid-September, over the same period in 2008. And canning classes from Brooklyn, N.Y., to Boise, Idaho, report seeing skyrocketing enrollments this year.

Canning has been around since the dawn of the 19th century, when, at Napoleon's behest, a Frenchman developed a method of sealing food in bottles to prevent spoilage on long military campaigns. The process was later adapted to factory-sealed metal cans, but at home, "canning" is still practiced in thick glass jars.

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and I'm afraid some people will get very sick.. In the "olden days" little girls learned the tricks of canning from Moms & Grannies, and by the time they set up their own households they were quite skilled at canning.. There are so many people now, who are totally new at this, and I just hope they ask for lots of advice, and throw stuff out at the first hint of something being not-right.

Some people are going to poison themselves.

I used to help my aunts and my grandmamas can.

1) Stay away from anything with meat in it. I know you're supposed to be able to "safely" can meat or meat-based recipes as long as you use a pressure canner but I've tried several times with sketchy results. I'd say just stay away from trying to can anything meat based.

2) Sterilize. And use the boiling water method and not the "just put it in the dishwasher" or microwave method. Wash everything first then boil the jars, lids, seals AND UTENSILS. ANYTHING boiling in hard, rolling, boiling water for 20 minutes or longer is going to be sterilized. Keep your work area clean (I put fresh paper towels down, beneath the jars) and handle everything as if you were a surgeon in an operating room.

I also freeze & dehydrate some of our fruits & veggies. I love it, and so does the family. I'm right now finishing up the final corn harvest & choppin' herbs:)

I'm also glad you put out this info, because I see shows, even on FoodTV, that recommend dangerous canning procedures & recipes. I find it amazing that they don't verify their stuff, but whatevah.

Thanks again.

the wife has been drying tomatoes and peppers non stop for weeks, pickling cukes that are starting to stack up and canning like the devil....

*shudder* I can't tell you how many times I've discouraged that one.

After canning for 40 years I'm in vogue! Who knew? :shrug:

(I'm proposing a new Intro to Canning/Preserving class at my local adult school for next spring.)

I learned from my grandma, and I'm passing it on to my boys who may or may not ever can on their own. But they grew some of this stuff (or in the case of the jam, picked the berries) so at least it provides them a closer connection to their food.

:)

My grandmother canned all the time, but I never learned, and my gardening was mostly for stuff I didn't need to can anyway:)..We always gave away the extra and gobbled up everything else:)

We did use the canning jars for iced tea glasses though..

Or, oh my gawd, I'm so old - I'm 40!!!!

Anyway, I grew up in a semi-rural area. We were too wooded to have a garden, but mom always brought home fresh produce from the farmers in the area to can. The only canned veggies we had in our big pantry were in glass jars. When I moved out, I discovered that most people actually ate canned veggies from tin cans. Imagine that.