Just another Day on the Farm

The storm that rolled though here last night was just nasty taking out power for close to 18 hours, leaving us in amazing hot and humid with no real ways to cool yourself other then being in the basement and cool cloths. We don’t have AC but I suddenly have a great deal more respect for the fans that we use.

Yesterday I picked up 28 pds of apricots and made Apricot Jam, Apricot Syrup, and Apricot Fruit, Now I was raised to put them into a mild Sugar Syrup, and to leave a certain head space on the jars, I was making Pints as that is the perfect amount of fruit for our little family in regards to a serving.

My jam and syrups turned out lovely and o the flavor! Moved on to the fruits and made the first batch without really even looking at the canning book, just doing it by memory, and then foolish me, I had a little time and decided to read my favorite canning book, it said I could in fact can them in water or ultra light and that I was in fact leaving to much head space, hmmm ok, so on the second batch, I followed their directions and measured out the new head space and into the canner they went..

I knew when they came out and were sitting there that something was wrong just looking at them, and sure enough they had lost some of the syrup in the cooking process and while the jars “were sealed” that it was a incorrect seal, and that left they would go bad and the fruit would not keep its quality but honestly, I was very unhappy to loose 12 pints of apricots, they are not cheap.. now what to do, the book says put in fridge and eat within X amount of time..hmmm

So after I got power back and had a cool shower, I needed to fix this issue before I could have a rest, I openned the jars, blended the jars together, measured the amount, figured out how much sugar was already in them, and then added the right amount of sugar and lemon juice and made it up into silky Apricot butter, cooked it and canned it back up.

The whole process is done now, and the end product sits cooling on its towel with all the lids sealed already. But was what I did a good thing or not? There is a line I walk when it comes to preserving my own food, I have info in my head of “how to do it” that often lacks the reason’s on WHY we do it that way, other then being told by grandma or mom, that is how its done. Sometimes this information fits in beautifully with what I read in my current canning books but sometimes it does not.

How to find the balance between this has worked in our own family without anyone getting ill from it for the past 60 plus years vs the new and informed work that swears up and down some of those very things are in fact iffy…

So I finally decided to do a little research on the “iffy” and what I have found out is that they make a recipe, test the results a number of times and then decide yes or no based on what fall’s into safe depending on if it meets their written rules.. This helps explain why there are so many older canning books that “meet the current guidelines” of the times just like our new books do 🙂

Do you see the catch? Meets the Current Guidelines which has been written to provide the biggest amount of safety for the general public, and those guidelines seem very flexable with time, what was safe, or healthy seems to be able to swing from one end to the other.. I will stick with a canning example, in N.A. they say that heating your clean jars in the oven is a unsafe thing to do, but in England, they do it all the time and its not considered unsafe..

Now I am not saying that to get into a debate on who is right or wrong, I am just using it to make a point.. In twenty years time, its possable that it will be considered safe here again if there is enough data to back it from being used in a different country..  When it comes to the offical line, its all about the data..

And really what is Tradional Information but Data that has been passed down a family line, shared from generation to generation on what works best in their climate, conditions and “food rules”.

A good example of this is that in the Alberta Dry air, water bath processing of jars is not often done in my own family, they use fresh out of the boiling water bath jars hot packed and open kettle canned, and have done so with no ill effects that I am aware of for years, however now living in Ontario, I can honestly say that if I was teaching someone to can, I would tell them they HAVE to do that 20 min waterbath, because I have learned the hard way in our hot and humid air, it is a required finishing touch to the process.

History is filled with folks that brought their knowledge and tradition’s with them, but they had to adapt that info to their new homelands.. I feel the same way with my canning, I want to honor my elders knowledge taught to me over many hours in the kitchen while using the “guidelines” to produce safe homemade food for my family.

What about you, do you follow the newest guidelines to the T or if you came from a canning family, are there still times you do it a certain way because that is how its been done for 3 or 4 or 5 generations within your own family and you want that certain taste that following that certain way of making or perserving will get you? This idea of balancing what you read vs how your family showed you how to make something goes far beyond canning.. do you have any good ideas or stories to share?