Published: September 03, 2008 01:05 am            

Garden fresh

Preserve food for that fresh taste all winter long

FAIRMONT — Green beans, hot peppers, sweet peppers, onions and tomatoes — you name it, Margaret Cowger cans it.

The Fairmont resident has a large garden where she grows all the above items as well as corn and some additional peppers, which she freezes, and cucumbers, which she makes into pickles. She grows potatoes, which she keeps in a bin year-round in the cellar that features rows of canned items for the family to use.

She also has a giant freezer, which comes in handy for the pigs and cattle that her family butchers and freezes.

“When the weather gets bad, other than milk and bread, you do not have to worry about going to the grocery store,” Cowger said. “You’ve got your potatoes and meat and vegetables. You can make almost any kind of meal. It’s really convenient.”

For Cowger, canning season lasts from about July through the first frost, usually in October. But canning season can begin as early as May for some, said Becky Mowbray, a West Virginia University extension agent for families and health in Harrison County.

“If people harvest certain fruits or vegetables for jams and jellies, they usually start earlier,” Mowbray said. “If they pick wild strawberries, they would start in May.”

Canning is a method of preserving foods in an airtight container so it does not spoil. There are several methods, and for some foods, freezing works better.

“Some foods do not can well,” Mowbray said. “Squash — that would be a food that you would freeze.”

Otherwise, “Canning is a very safe method for preserving food,” she said. “If you have the equipment, it can be very economical. But you have to have the canner lids tested every year.”

That is a service provided by extension offices, Mowbray said.

She also recently held a class in canning and although she does not have one planned again for this year, she might do it again next year.

“Most of the older generation, that’s how they were brought up,” she said. “Canning is part of their lives. The younger generation, there is an interest. I’ve had younger families and younger mothers ask about canning classes.”

And although she agrees that canning is a useful method of trimming the household food budget, she has not had anyone say to her specifically that their interest stems from the economy.

“But I have heard people comment that they think with the economy, there probably will be more interest,” she said. “Just personally, I haven’t had people come up to me and say, ‘Because of the economy, I want to can.’”

Cowger has done it for about 30 years, since she got married, she said.

The method of canning and the recipes she uses depends on the item she cans. For peppers and tomatoes, she might use sauce or vinegar or oil, and for green beans, she uses her mother-in-law’s method of putting them into jars raw, pouring boiling salt water over them and pressure canning them for 25 minutes.

“You have to have some kind of liquid to put in the jar,” she said.

High acid foods such as fruits generally can be canned through a boiling water method, Mowbray said, but most vegetables and meats should be pressure canned. The United States Department of Agriculture (www.usda.gov/) has changed the guidelines for canning safety, Mowbray said.

To kill yeast, molds and most bacteria, items should be boiled at 212 degrees Fahrenheit. To kill botulism — which can be a problem with low-acid foods such as vegetables and meat — the temperature is higher, at 240 degrees Fahrenheit.

“Tomatoes, that is a borderline food,” Mowbray said. “Some things you can hot water bath, but some have to be pressure canned.”

During the garden harvest season, Cowger figures she spends some time just about every day of the week toward canning items, but the year-round results are worth it.

When she opens up the jar later on to make a meal, “It’s still fresh. It’s as if you are eating out of the garden. If you do it out of a can, there is a can flavor, so it’s different. You can’t believe it until you eat it that way.”

Canning vegetables does lose some of the nutritional value than if the food is eaten fresh, Mowbray said, but not much.

“You don’t lose a substantial amount of nutrients,” she said. “You may lose some, but you are still getting your nutrients.”

E-mail Mary Wade Burnside at mwburnside@timeswv.com.

        

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