Preserving a way of life

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Today is Wednesday, August 9th.

Thank you for turning to WORLD Radio to help start your day.

Good morning. I’m Mary Reichard.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: And I’m Myrna Brown.

School is just a few weeks away for many students…if you’re a parent looking to get daily news from a biblical perspective, now’s the time to check out World Watch. Our 10-minute video news program for students is available to watch for free this week.

REICHARD: oooh! Good deal!

BROWN: Check it out at world-watch-dot-today.

I bring this up because today’s feature story is a piece I did for both World Radio and World Watch. Mary, are you into food prep?

REICHARD: I have meals delivered to me, like Home Chef.

BROWN: No, I mean preparing your own food for future use?

REICHARD: Oh, you mean like pickling things, or canning?

BROWN: Yes!

REICHARD: I’ve always wanted to learn how to do that.

BROWN: Well, this story about a life-long home canner may whet your appetite.

EMILY COOK: That’s dill pickles, that’s collard greens. Collard greens? um-hum…best way to cook them. That’s fig preserves…

MYRNA BROWN, CORRESPONDENT: Emily Cook smiles when she shows off her collection of mason jars. Quart and pint-sized glass jars lined neatly under solid black walnut kitchen cabinets.

COOK: That’s soup, that’s jelly, that green beans, that’s pears…

Packed inside the jars, entire meals and desserts swim in succulent juices and sweet fruit sauces. Canning is a tradition in Cook’s family.

COOK: My grandmother was the first. But I can remember as a young child my mother canning. And my aunts canned. It was just a normal thing that women did in the household growing up.

74-year-old Cook says canning was also a necessity.

COOK: Well, freezers had not been invented except for just the small freezers so to preserve their food, they could either dry it or can it. If you dried it some foods did not keep their taste and flavor so they learned to can.

COOK: This is my grandmother…

Cook points to a 1920 photograph of her grandmother, a young widow, raising three small children. She says her grandmother worked her farm and canned the foods she harvested to feed her family.

COOK: The woman always has to make sure her family is fed. And that’s why they preserved everything they could get their hands on. You don’t know what the next day’s going to bring.

With the rise of supermarkets, home freezers and electric stoves, home canning began to fall out of favor by the 1950s. In the 70s, the back-to-the-land movements created a canning resurgence. Then, during the COVID-19 lockdowns, a new generation became interested once again in growing and preserving food at home. Online content creators with large followings made it look easy.

YOUTUBE VIDEO: Hey everyone and welcome to episode 398. In this week’s video I want to sit down and talk with you a little bit about food preservation….We are going to be having a very candid conversation on partially the history of canning…

Today, just a few miles from Emily Cook’s kitchen, a group of thirty plus women and a few men are gathering inside a classroom with a makeshift kitchen. They’ll spend the next two hours learning the art of canning.

People arriving for Canning 101: Hello ladies, how y’all doing…

Claire Reichley and Meg Hellmich allow their noses to lead the way.

BROWN: What does it smell like here? It is smelling like some peppers in the back, some onions are creeping up from the back during the class.

HELLMICH: Oh it smelled fabulous. It smelled so good.

Hellmich and her husband are both retired, just looking for another hobby.

HELLMICH: We kind of like to do homemade things. We do a satsuma jelly that we’ve been making for years and people love it for Christmas.

26-year-old Reichley is an educator hoping to introduce her students to canning.

REICHLEY: I actually am the sponsor of the garden club at the local high school so I’m just trying to build some knowledge. I’ve got my own vegetable gardens. So, just trying to learn a little bit.

AMBI CANNING CLASS: For time purposes (blender noise) I’m going to try and do a little kitchen magic…

Regional Food Safety Agent Rebecca Catalena says whatever the motivation, she has one job. As the workshop instructor, she makes sure home canners understand canning is also a science.

CATELENA: That’s one of the big things with extension that we do stress is making sure that it’s tested and safe.

Catelena says there are two main ways to safely can today. Low acid foods like meats and vegetables can have harmful microorganisms. For those items, pressure canning is advised. Pressure canners look like huge crock pots on steroids. They are large enough to hold multiple cans or jars during the heating process. Equipped with a heat gauge to monitor high temperatures, pressure canners can effectively kill deadly fungi and bacteria in certain foods.

AMBI: Well with a water bath canner…

A water bath or hot water canner is a big pot with a lid and a rack in the bottom. Unlike pressure canners, water bath canners are used to process high acid foods, like fruits, which naturally resist bacteria growth. Catelena warns using the two canning methods interchangeably can lead to deadly food poisoning.

CATELENA: People will try to water bath can their vegetables and they think the longer they water bath can their vegetables, that’s going to reduce the risk of botulism. Which is not the case. You need the high temp from the pressure canner and actual pressure to reduce the risk.

AMBI STUDENT: Is that for any canning?

During the workshop, canners get to interact with the canning equipment they’ll eventually purchase and use at home. Speaking of dollars, a solid water bath canner costs around twenty bucks…or you could pay three times as much online. Pressure canners often cost over two-hundred dollars and sometimes go much higher.

AMBI: I put the blueberry pie filling in the refrigerator last night where it would be cool

Back in Emily Cook’s kitchen, her pressure canner sits on her stove. She says she can’t complain about the extra dollars spent when she considers the big picture.

COOK: So if you grow your own vegetables you can do seven probably for $1.50 and you can’t buy seven quarts of for instance green beans for $1.50, so it does save you money.

And when it comes to taste…she opens her fridge and pulls out her latest creation…a deep purple compote with round blueberries handpicked, washed, and canned three months ago.

COOK: This has no artificial ingredients and this has a few blackberries in to make it a little different.

As she spoons the fruit sauce over an inviting slice of cream cheese pie, art and science become one. It’s pretty close to perfection!

AMBI, COOK SERVING MYRNA PIE: Oh, I get more…. Oh my goodness.. There you go… you got lots of blueberries…

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Myrna Brown in Fairhope, Alabama.

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