Tuesday, September 7, 2010

Food Storage

Eating locally seems like a great idea, and I'm so into this idea for such a vast array of reasons that it tires me to even think about outlining them yet again. You should know by now, eating local just makes sense on a number of levels. The thing that makes it hard, though, is the seasonality of our beautiful northern climes. When I first gained awareness of the importance of everyday food choices, it was the dead of winter, and it really forced my tastebuds into a certain degree of asceticism. Beets and potatoes are delicious, not to be misunderstood, but the wonderful selection of root vegetables stands in stark contrast to the summer's strawberries, the variety of stonefruit from the okanagan, the fresh hothouse tomatoes and cucumbers, and the sweet, wild things that grow in my very neighborhood.
And so it came to be that we gained access to a large chest freezer. Immediately, it found itself stuffed with organic chicken and locally finished natural beef... but it felt empty. It was missing a certain variety. It was missing blueberries! And blackberries! And corn, and beans! So I began to fill bags... so many bags... and then I discovered jars! The things you can put in jars! Peaches, apricots, cherries, blueberries, blackberries, beans, pickles, eggplants, tomatoes... all of the things that we are so blessed with in this time of abundance can be frozen in time, preserved for the long winter ahead! Such discoveries have opened a whole new world of local gastronomy.
I feel much like those first homesteaders to discover canning must have felt (minus the many botulism deaths they must have initially endured). The excitement of expanded winter eating, followed by the realisation of the responsibility to engage in the work of food storage, and the feeling like I could never possible squirrel away enough for the winter. The mad rush to pickle everything, everything, everything I can. I'm now sitting on about 6 dozen jars of preserves and 30lbs of frozen berries... never enough... never enough.
If you want the crib notes of actually how to get this canning done, send me an email. It's actually quite easy, if you are aware of a couple lynchpin concepts. But I think I'll save the mass-publishing of the mechanics for my book.


Neufeld Farms blueberries in 1lb bags for freezing

Cherries and peach halves in syrup

So many pickles! Beautiful pickles!

Pickled beans, dill cucumbers, and Ashcroft eggplant

Pickled eggplant antipasto

No comments:

Post a Comment