Canning

We started Nashville Foodies with an emphasis on dining out locally, but as we've learned and grown over the three years we've developed an appreciation for all things local food in Nashville, and that includes purchasing foodstuffs locally and cooking at home.

I grew up watching my mother and paternal grandmother can food items, or "putting up" as Mamaw would call it. Unfortunately, it's not a skill I picked up, because I would always be shooed away from the kitchen because of safety reasons when Mamaw would can (mostly low-acid vegetables, which require pressure canning). And my mother thought that if I ever made it in this world I'd not have to spend time canning and housecleaning.

And yet, now that I guess I've "made it" (whatever that means) I find myself wanting to spend time in the kitchen, creating foodstuffs with my hands to nourish myself and my husband and our friends, and to preserve the summer's bounty for the cooler winter times. For the past few years I've frozen a lot, but this year I wanted to try canning and the entire Nashville Foodies group got together to do so a few weeks ago.

We purchased tomatoes at the Nashville Farmer's market, a bushel of canning tomatoes ($12/half bushel) and a half bushel of romas (not sure of the price). We spent about eight hours on a Sunday canning and came up with jars of whole romas, salsa, and tomato sauce. We even pulled together a batch of zucchini relish and froze some bags of roasted tomato soup.
It was quite an endeavor and pushed the limits of my small kitchen, but we were successful! And it was especially a great time to be together with friends and focus on a project involving food.

A week later I was given a half peck of apples from Carthage and turned them into apple butter on a weekday evening. I've also made raspberry jam with good results.


I'm glad to have picked up the skill of canning. My grandmother passed away earlier this year and I have a treasured jar of half-runner green beans which she canned and gave to us the year my husband and I got married. I know it will eventually go bad but just seeing the jar in my pantry, with her handwriting on the lid identifying its contents, is comforting to me and I feel like I'm continuing on a tradition. I encourage you to try canning yourself! Once you are informed about safety measures and buy a few key items, you'll be well on your way to preserving Nashville's bounty and enjoying it all year round.

Resources
I've found a few resources that have been very helpful to me in learning about the process of canning. Doing it correctly is of utmost importance because terrible things can happen (i.e., botulism), if you do things incorrectly. To get started, you'll want to get a waterbath and a starter kit which will include funnel and magnetic stick. I canned my first batch of pint-sized raspberry jam in a large stock pot with jar rings used to keep the jars off the bottom of the pot, which will do in a pinch, but you'll need the waterbath if you want to can in bigger vessels.

Be sure to read up carefully on safety, and make sure your info is up-to-date. Apparently there's a lot of scientific research that goes into safe practices and methods are updated often. You can usually get a brochure from your county extension office. In general, low-acid foods should be canned in a pressure canner, and high-acid ones can go in a water bath.

The Complete Book of Small-Batch Preserving: Over 300 Recipes to Use Year-Round This book has fantastic recipes and instructions for canning and preserving small batches of food - perfect for picking up some items on a Saturday morning at the farmer's market and having it preserved by mid-afternoon. We made our zucchini relish, tomato sauce, and salsa from this book, and I made apple butter a week later. I find it to be a great resource when I want to preserve items we get from our CSA.

Food in Jars A canning blog by Marisa McClellan, a former editor at Slashfood. Beautiful photos of canning processes and helpful ideas.

Williamson County Extension Office I went to a class here earlier in the summer and it was pivotal in helping me get started, learning the lingo of canning as well as safety concerns.