Slow Food & the Community

Late Summer Canning

There are moments that are magic, and events that are alchemy. You never know when they will arrive, or with whom. All you can do is raise your face to the sky and say thank-you.

Canning with Penny and Tony Marshall was one of those moments.

It was a late summer Sunday morning. I drove south to Aldersyde, so glad to leave town behind me. I crossed the highway and rumbled over the cattle guard, and was home. The river was singing. The air was cool in a way that suddenly happens as fall runs towards the high plain. The hay, newly mown, lay on the verge of the field, smelling of light, and of green gone to gold. Tears suddenly filled my eyes.

I was joining a dozen women and a lone man in a canning workshop held under the banner of Slow Food Calgary. Of the many Slow Food events I have attended, this was the Slow-est, the most in tune with the timing that Slow espouses.

Our hosts were Penny and Tony Marshall, stewards and owners of Highwood Crossing Farm, where they cold-press organic flax and canola seeds into a prairie original oil, and custom-grow organic vegetables for River Cafe. The farm has been in the Marshall family for over a century, and has seen a lot of living, and many visitors: bus tours that busted the deck, Scottish culinary students more familiar with heather than canola, and hat-tossing visitors adrift on a prairie schooner in a field of high summer hope. Today, we were revisiting a dying art that most farm women routinely practiced when the farm was young. We were going to make pickles, chutney, jam.

Tony, the keeper of the flame, had five big butane burners set up, with blue enamel canning pots securely balanced on stands over the blue flickers. Penny was washing fruit, laying out cutting boards and sterilizing glass jars in the humming oven.

The beets, golden as the sun, came from their field. Penny roasted them in their jackets, and as they shed their skins under our knives they gleamed like old medallions. We mixed together a bowl of pickling spice, cracking seed pods, crumbling leaves and breaking bark. Then we put our faces deep into the bowl, and breathed in. Whole round notes, melodies of hot climates and faraway shores where bay trees and cinnamon and cardamom flourish, sang in our temples and sinus cavities.

The plums were the season’s earliest Italian prune plums from the Okanagan. They were dusky, dun-dull and humble, sliced quarters lying quiescent in the pot. We added a broken cinnamon stick, a brown star anise sheltering its licorice soul, a dollop of clover honey, and a lemon, hope-yellow. We applied heat and patience, stirring gently. The plum skins bled their beauty into the pot, dyeing the pulp purple. The women looked down at the glowing regal purple that materialized, and gasped. You never know where glory will be born.

At another table, russet pear peels were falling in curves that Botticelli could envy. Cubes of ripe pear, slivers of lemon, shards of ginger, handfuls of dried cranberries and the bite of cider vinegar swam in a merger that seemed unlikely to marry. Time added its gentle touch, and the edges softened like memory, and slid into suave chutney.

Penny ladled beets into jars, heady brine with flecks of spices spooned on top. Women’s hands fluttered over the plum butter, and then the chutney.The jars followed each other into the steampots like obedient soldiers.

Half an hour later, the jars emerged from the boiling vats, pulled with Tony’s careful hands and wide-mouthed tongs. He aligned them on a cloth in the sunlight, where they glowed in parade colours, as brightly as the women clustered about them, sunflowers in the afternoon light.

I folded my grateful hands in front of me, a silent prayer. I was too tired to cry, but I cried anyhow as I drove home.

A Preserving Primer
Canning requires care and attention to detail. Use a boiling water bath to preserve your canned goods, and a pressure canner for low-acid vegetables and proteins to prevent botulism.

1. Sterilize everything. Simmer 2-part jar rings for 5 minutes to soften the sealing compound on the inner edge. Wash jars, then sterilize them.

2. Do not alter recipes. Salt, sugar and vinegar are preservatives, but they still follow the chemical laws of science. Reducing sugar in a jam or jelly will not only encourage spoilage, but can affect the set of the pectin. Choose low-methoxyl pectin or low-sugar pectins if you want a less sweet jam. Make sure whole pieces of fruit are completely covered with liquid. Use a non-metal tool—a chopstick is ideal– to position foods and remove air pockets.

3. Use a large, heavy-bottomed pot to cook the fruit. This reduces the chance of overflow, sticking or burning. Stir!

4. Use jars designated for canning. Recycle canning jars, but other glass jars may not withstand the stresses of canners.

5. Use wide-mouth canning tongs to transfer the jars in and out of the boiling water. Place a sterilized jar on a small plate, place a wide-mouth funnel in the jar, and ladle in the preserves.

6. “Headroom” refers to the distance at the top of the jar that is left unfilled. The air contained in that space must be driven out and a vacuum created, sealing the jar and creating a sterile environment. If the jar is overfilled, the contents boil out and over, impeding the seal. If the jars are underfilled, it takes too long to force out all the air left inside, and a vacuum is never created, spoiling the food. Rule of thumb for headroom is as follows: 1/4″ (.5 cm) for 8-ounce (250 ml) jars, 1/2″ (1 cm) for everything larger. Use a clean damp cloth to wipe the top surface of the jar lip after you fill it.

7. Center the flat lid on the jar, add the outer ring and tighten to fingertight.

8. Return the filled jars to the hot water in a single layer on a metal rack for processing. The water must cover the tops of the jars by at least 1″ (2.5 cm) for sufficient pressure to drive all the air out of the jars. Cover the pot snugly. Bring the water to a boil, and start timing then. Times depend on the jar size and altitude; add ten minutes for altitudes above 3,000 feet. (Average processing times at sea level: 15minutes for half-pint (250 ml) jars; 25 minutes for pint (500 ml) jars;30 minutes for quart (1L). ) When time is elapsed, remove jars to a flat surface covered with a folded tea towel and away from a draft. Check for a seal: touch the top of the lid; it should not move, should be slightly concave, and should ring clearly when you tap it. Listen as the jars cool; there will be an audible ping as each lid seals.

Recipes:

Sarah’s Beet Pickles
A Prairie classic from my maternal grandmother, this pickle recipe can be adapted for use with cukes and cauliflower florets.

Makes about 12 250-mL jars
12 cups (3 L) cooked beets, peeled and diced or sliced
4 ½ cups (1L) water
1 ½ cups (375 mL) white sugar
1 ½ cups (375 mL) white vinegar
1 Tbsp. (15 mL) pickling salt
1 Tbsp. (15 mL pickling spice (recipe follows)

Put the beets into a large pot. Add the remaining ingredients and bring to a boil. Ladle into jars, seal and process in a boiling water bath for 25 minutes.

Lemon, Pear and Ginger Chutney
Make this when you have a windfall of ripe pears. I am partial to the textures and flavours of Packhams, Anjous and Bartletts.

Makes about 10 -250 mL jars
6 cups (1.5 L) peeled and chopped ripe pears
2 lemons, finely sliced
1/4 cup(60 mL) grated or sliced ginger root
2 cups (500 mL) brown sugar
1 cup (250 mL) raisins or dried cranberries
2 cups (500 mL) apple cider vinegar
1 tbsp. (15 mL) pickling salt
½ -1 tsp. (2.5 -5 mL) cayenne, or to taste

Combine all ingredients in a heavy-bottomed pot and bring to a boil. reduce heat and simmer until the fruit is softened, and the chutney thickens. Stir frequently to prevent sticking. Transfer to several sterilized jars, process for 25 minutes, cool, and store for a month to ripen before use.

Plum Butter
This misnomer contains no butter. It is just fruit and sugar, simmered to thickness. If your market has damson plums, buy them. They make absolutely the best plum butter. The amount of sugar you add will vary depending on the type of plum you choose, so add and taste, then rebalance with extra lemon juice to keep this from being too sweet. Use half-pint jars because of the relatively low sugar content, refrigerate after opening and enjoy promptly.

Makes 4-6 half-pint jars
2 lb.(900 g) plums, pitted and quartered
1-2 cups (240-480 g) sugar
½ cup (120 mL) lemon juice
1 cinnamon stick
4 whole star anise

Pit and quarter the plums, then put them on to simmer in a heavy-bottomed pot on medium heat. You may need to add a little water until the juices start to flow from the plums. Add and stir in sugar and lemon juice to taste, then simmer the plums until they thicken, about 20 minutes, with the cinnamon and star anise, stirring regularly to keep the juices from burning. Pick out and discard the cinnamon and star anise. If you like, put the butter through a food mill to remove some of the skins, then return to a boil before processing/ Put up into sterile jars, process for 20 minutes and cool.

Pickling Spice
This is so easy to make! For the truest, cleanest flavours, use whole spices, in equal amounts by weight. Make as much as you expect to use in the season.

allspice berries
bay leaf, crumbled
black peppercorns
cardamom seeds
celery seeds
cinnamon stick, broken
whole cloves
coriander seeds
mustard seeds
red chilies