ShareThisCanning's comeback seems here to stay. Equipment sales are up, cookbooks are selling and home cooks, from beginners to experts, are enjoying the pleasure of a well-filled jar.
And as home cooks who took tentative first steps in this art of food preservation gain confidence, they are exploring new flavor combinations, such as herb-infused jellies and peach-ginger preserves.
Even recent canning converts are experimenting. Mary Wooten, 40, who lives in Indian Trail, N.C., 15 miles southeast of Charlotte, had never considered canning, remembering the work involved from watching her grandparents. "It just seemed so labor-intensive," Wooten says.
Then this summer, Wooten hosted a party sponsored by Ball canning company via houseparty.com. The company shipped her a canner, rack, utensils, coupons for free jars, cookbooks and more. Seven women, most of them canning novices, gathered to make salsa and pepper jelly. They had so much fun that they agreed to meet in October for a "jam session" to make presents for their children's teachers.
"I have totally fallen in love with this," says Wooten, who has since made pomegranate and pineapple jellies. "It is something that lasts longer than a plate of cookies."
There are so many people buying supplies that veteran canner Penny Walker, 56, has had trouble finding enough. "I think everybody must be canning," Walker says. "I've had a hard time finding lids these days."
Walker sells jams, pickles and other canned goods at the Franklin County Farmers Market, 30 miles north of Raleigh, N.C.
Sales of preserving products, such as Ball brand jars, are up almost 10 percent this year, after two years of significant double-digit growth, says SymphonyIRI, which tracks sales at food, drug and mass-market retail outlets.
Canning products are cropping up at Big Lots, Lowe's Home Improvement and other retailers. About half a dozen canning cookbooks were released this year. And phones are ringing at county agricultural extension offices, with consumers asking about how to can safely.
Who makes up this new breed of canners, and why? Women between 39 and 55 who live in more urban areas, says Brenda Schmidt, a brand manager at Jarden Home Brands, which makes Ball brand jars and food-preservation products.
"They are canning for very different reasons than our grandmothers canned," Schmidt says.
That would be necessity. Canning was invented during the Napoleonic wars almost 200 years ago; until the mid-20th century, when freezers became household fixtures, it was the only way to preserve food for any length of time.
This new generation has other motivations for canning. Some want to control salt, sugar and other preservatives in the foods they eat. Some want to support local farmers and "put up" -- as we call it in the South -- locally grown produce at its tastiest. Some enjoy making homemade gifts. Others are drawn to the trend because of the economic downturn.
And some enjoy the creativity of tinkering with flavors. Raleigh cookbook author Debbie Moose has been canning for a decade. She started with jams and has graduated to pickles, relishes and jellies, the latter being the one she's experimented with the most.
"Since I had that process mastered, I knew what I could and couldn't do," she says.
Moose has turned thyme and rose tea into jelly, made batches of lavender jelly, even combined store-bought juices to make jelly.
For Chapel Hill, N.C., cookbook author Jean Anderson, apple jelly is a good starting point for flavorful additions. Plus, the apples have enough natural pectin that you don't have to add commercial pectin to make jelly. Anderson's book, "The Green Thumb Preserving Guide," lists such apple-jelly variations as rose geranium, lemon verbena, tarragon, rosemary and sage.
If you want to experiment, the key, Anderson says, is to not to change the ratios. For jams, jellies and preserves, don't alter the amounts of acid, sugar and fruit or fruit juice. In pickling, don't change the proportions of vinegar, water and produce. But she says you can tweak flavors.
Follow those rules, Anderson says, and canning novices should feel emboldened. She says, "Tell people, 'Fear not.' "
PEACH GINGER PRESERVES
4 cups diced peaches, peeled
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1-1/2 tablespoons shredded fresh ginger
1 pack pectin
5-1/2 cups sugar
Place diced peaches, lemon juice, ginger and pectin in a pot. Over high heat, bring to a strong boil. Add sugar and, stirring frequently, bring to a rolling boil. Check for signs of jelling. If the mixture runs off your spoon or spatula like water, more boiling is needed. If it runs off like teardrop drips, go 30 seconds to a minute longer.
Pack in clean hot pint jars, leaving 1/4-inch head space. Process in a boiling water bath for 10 minutes. Remove from canner, let stand until cool to room temperature.
Yield: 6 half-pint jars
-- Adapted from "Putting Up: A Year-Round Guide to Canning in the Southern Tradition," by Stephen Palmer Dowdney (Gibbs Smith, 2008)
THYME-ROSE TEA JELLY
8 rosehips tea bags
2 tablespoons fresh thyme leaves
3-1/2 cups sugar
1/4 cup white vinegar
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1 pouch liquid pectin
Bring 2 quarts of water to a boil. Add the tea bags and thyme leaves. Let steep 15 minutes. Strain into a large pitcher, discarding tea bags and thyme. Let cool to room temperature.
Place tea, sugar, vinegar and lemon juice in a large pot and bring to a boil. Add pectin; bring back to a boil. It is done when it starts to jell: The jelly drips off a spoon in larger thick droplets.
Pour in half-pint jars and process for 5 minutes in a boiling water bath. Remove from canner. Let stand until cool to room temperature.
Yield: 6-8 half-pint jars
-- Raleigh News & Observer columnist Debbie Moose (www.debbiemoose.com)
PRESERVED FIGS WITH STAR ANISE AND BAY
3 pounds figs, stems trimmed and halved
1 lemon
2-1/2 cups sugar
3/4 cup water
6 whole star anise
1 bay leaf
Place figs in a nonreactive bowl. Remove several wide strips of lemon zest with a carrot peeler; then slice lemons into thick slices.
Bring sugar and water to a boil with the lemon zest, star anise and bay and boil slowly for 5 minutes, stirring at first to dissolve the sugar. Pour syrup over the figs, squeeze over the lemon juice, and leave them to stand overnight, covered, in a cool place.
Transfer figs to a wide saucepan. Gently bring them to a boil and cook slowly for the better part of 2 hours. Occasionally check the figs and give them a stir so that they are all submerged, taking care not to break them. Prepare canning jars in boiling water to sterilize them; then ladle in the figs, covering with syrup. Process in a boiling water bath for 10 minutes. Remove from canner. Let stand until cool to room temperature.
Yield: 6-8 half-pint jars
-- "The Savory Way," by Deborah Madison (Broadway, 1998)
SWEET YELLOW SQUASH PICKLES
3 to 3-1/2 pounds tender young straight-neck yellow squash, trimmed, scrubbed, and sliced 1/4-inch thick
4 to 4-1/2 pounds silverskin onions, peeled and thinly sliced
1/2 cup pickling salt
6 cups crushed ice
3-1/2 cups sugar
2 cups white distilled vinegar
2 cups cider vinegar
2 teaspoons mustard seeds
1-3/4 teaspoons celery seeds
1-3/4 teaspoons ground turmeric
Although the recipe calls for straight-neck yellow squash, I used crookneck with excellent results. The sliced squash and onions should be about 12 cups each. The recipe calls for pickling salt, which is free of additives and can be purchased with other canning supplies.
Layer the sliced squash and onions in a very large nonreactive bowl, sprinkling each layer with salt. Pile the ice on top, set the bowl in the sink and let stand 3 hours.
Drain squash and onions, transfer to a very large colander, and rinse under the cold tap. Drain well. Then, using the bowl of a ladle, press out as much liquid as possible.
Wash and rinse 8 one-pint preserving jars and their closures and submerge in a large kettle of boiling water.
Bring sugar, white and cider vinegars, mustard and celery seeds and turmeric to a rolling boil in a large nonreactive kettle. Add squash and onions and, stirring gently, return to the boil.
Lift preserving jars from the boiling water one by one. Pack with pickles, making sure they are submerged in the pickling liquid and leaving 1/4-inch head space at the top of the jar. Run a thin blade spatula around the inside of the jar to release the air bubbles; wipe the jar rim with a clean, damp cloth, then screw on the closure. Repeat until all jars are filled.
Process jars for 10 minutes in a boiling water bath. Lift from water bath; complete the seals, if necessary, by tightening the lids, then cool to room temperature.
Yield: 6 to 8 pints
-- "My Love Affair with Southern Cooking," by Jean Anderson, William Morrow, 2007
(andrea.weigl(at)newsobserver.com.)
(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)
Must credit The News and Observer of Raleigh, N.C.With sidebars: CANNINGSIDE1, CANNINGSIDE2
