Why Home Food Preservation Is Making A Comeback

Move Over, Sourdough. Grandma's Kitchen Skills Are Back.

According to a new report highlighted in a recent article, sourdough may need to move over and make room for some of Grandma's other kitchen skills! Are you going to try your hand?

MAKING A COMEBACK

Canning. Pickling. Freezing. Fermenting. Making things from scratch. Right now, it's making a comeback. Whether you want to know what it's like to make your own food, or you're looking for a useful hobby, I agree it's a great skill to learn. (Your Grandma would be so proud of you)!

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OLD FASHIONED FOOD PROJECTS

According to the article, there is growing interest in homemade pantry staples and old-fashioned food projects. Things like:

Homemade spice blends
Fermenting recipes
Kombucha
Canning strawberry lemonade concentrate...
(Now there's something I NEVER thought of).

For whatever reason, there is something pretty satisfying about taking food that is fresh right from the garden, or the farmer's market, and figuring out how to enjoy it later. If you've ever had a garden overflowing with tomatoes, zucchini or green beans, you know that sometimes the problem isn't growing the food; it's figuring out what in the world you're going to do with all of it because there's usually too much to use up all at once.

HELP REDUCE FOOD WASTE

That leads me to my next point. Preserving food is a great way to reduce waste and potentially stretch a grocery budget. The University of Minnesota Extension offers information for Minnesotans interested in canning, freezing, drying, and other food preservation methods.

There is one important difference between trying to do something "just like Grandma did" and actually following Grandma's recipe exactly. We know a lot more now about food safety, and when you plan on sharing your home goods with others, food safety really does matter.

LISTEN TO THE PROS AT THE 'U OF M'

The University of Minnesota Extension recommends using research-based recipes and proper preservation methods. That is especially important when it comes to canning.

For example, tomatoes may seem like an easy food to put in jars, but the University of Minnesota Extension says acidity can vary. That means proper acidification and tested processing methods are important when canning tomatoes. If you're going to give this Grandma hobby a try, it's probably a good idea to let modern food science come along for the ride.

STICK-TO- IT-TIVENESS

By the way...be ready for a fail. When you are learning something new like this, it can be a little overwhelming. I'm sure your Grandma had a few batches of failure before perfecting her techniques. You can do it... just stick to it!

As for me, I've found two recipes I'm thinking about trying this year.

The first one is a no-cook, no-fail freezer jam recipe from 'Mommy's Kitchen.'

GET THE RECIPE

Now THIS sounds like the kind of project I can handle.

Instead of spending hours standing over a hot stove, freezer jam uses fruit, sugar, and freezer pectin. The fruit is mashed, mixed, and stored in freezer-safe containers; No traditional canning required.

According to Mommy's Kitchen, freezer jam can be made with different fruits, including strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, blueberries, mixed berries and peaches. The result is a homemade jam that can be kept in the freezer and enjoyed later. I'm thinking rhubarb can be added in there too.

EASY BEGINNER'S PROJECT

I am especially interested in this one because it sounds like a great beginner project. You still get the satisfaction of seeing jars filled with something you made yourself, but without immediately jumping into the deep end of home canning.

And if I can pull this off, I may just be ready to move on to my next project.

TOMATOES...TOMATOES...SO MANY TOMATOES

Lana's Cooking has a recipe and guide for home-canned tomatoes that uses fresh tomatoes, bottled lemon juice, and pickling salt, along with a boiling-water canning process.

This one is definitely a little more serious.

LANA'S COOKING HOME CANNED TOMATOES RECIPE

Can you imagine opening a jar of home-canned tomatoes in the middle of a Minnesota winter and remembering that those tomatoes were sitting fresh in your kitchen just a few months earlier?

That's the part of this whole trend that appeals to me.

Yes, maybe we can save some money. Maybe we can use food before it goes bad. Maybe we can learn something new.

But maybe it is also about slowing down a little.

Instead of immediately tossing extra fruit in the garbage or watching garden tomatoes pile up on the counter until they become a science experiment, we can actually do something with them.

GIVE IT A TRY

I don't know if my freezer jam will turn out as good as Grandma's. I don't know if I'll have rows of beautiful canned tomatoes lined up in my pantry, but what I DO know...is that at least I'm willing to try.