Greene Janet - Putting food by

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Table of Contents

Decent mention of all the distinguished food scientists who helped with this Fifth Edition would be a Whos Who in home food preservation in the United States and Canada. They are in Washington, D.C., and Ottawa; in each states Cooperative Extension Service, and in each provinces Ministry of Agriculture and Food; and continue out to all county agents, Extension Home Economists and Master Food Preservers, and informal groups that reach into our homes.

We, and all like-minded people everywhere, are beholden to them and salute them.

JG

What Is It?

To put by is an old, deep-country way of saying to save something you dont use now, against the time when youll need it. Putting food by is simply food preservation.

Who does it? Millions of households in the United States and Canada, for openers. Preserving food at home is prehistorical, though: drying and fermenting are the earliest known means, followed in very short order by salting and brining (pickling). Preserving with sugar came next, but much later. Home-canning is less than two centuries old, and deliberate deep-freezing is the youngest method used at home.

Nowadays every nation on earth practices its own forms of preservation family-by-family, but chances are that North Americans do more of it on a wider scale than householders in any other major region. In fact, home preserving in the United States is more popular than ever. Between October 2008 and October 2009, sales of home-preserving products by Jarden Home Brands, the maker of the famed Ball and Kerr canning jars, rose 12 percent.

There is no hocus-pocus about food preservation, no touchstone, no luck, no mystery. Food preservation is the protection of food from spoilageperiod. Spoilage can mean unattractively over-the-hill, on to downright nasty, to finallyand most dangerously because sometimes it is not self-evidentdeadly.

This book has been written to tell the lay person how to control spoilage or prevent it entirely, so that a full program/menu of foods can be harvested in a time of plenty and treated to be wholesome and available in a time of need.

Whether we are cooking dinner or canning tomatoes, we first clean the food, ridding it of external spoilers like dirt, blemishes, or infestations. We do the same thing in starting to preserve it. Next, we treat the unseen causes of deterioration, chief among them being the enzymes, those remarkable substances programmed to make the food fulfill its ordained life cycle.

And finally we deal with the greater trouble-makers: the micro-organisms that can poison our food. These are stopped dead or destroyed outright by reducing the oxygen that most microbes need; by applying heat or radically decreasing the temperature (heat kills them, freezing holds them immobilized); by increasing acid (because virtually no microbial action occurs in strong-acid mediums); by decreasing the available water that they require.

George York of the University of California, Davis, gives the following examples of how these microbial controls are applied, thereby demonstrating the beauty of home-preservation of food. The preserving methods are: (1) making jams and jellieslowering the available water, removing oxygen, applying heat, adding acid; (2) canning fruits and tomatoesreducing oxygen (sealing jars), applying heat, relying on natural or added acid; (3) dryingtaking away most of the available water; (4) canning vegetables and meats (both low-acid)removing oxygen again, and applying intense heat; (5) freezinginhibiting enzymatic action and radically lowering temperature; and (6) picklinggreatly increasing acidity beyond the tolerances of deadly micro-organisms.

PFB has said earlier, and says again, that anyone with the drive to preserve food has the gumption to want to do it right. No big deal: anyone who can ride herd on a gas grill or backyard barbecue can follow the ways to preserve food safely.

Why Foods Spoil

Everything in this chapter applies to every safe method of preserving food at home, as you will see as PFB describes each process for each individual food. Meanwhile here follow the basic principles that are amplified throughout the rest of the book. They are corralled here for ready reference because we feel so strongly that any newcomer to canning, freezing, making preserves, drying, root-cellaring, or curing can always keep the How of food safety in mind if the Why is clear and handy.

Four kinds of things cause spoilage in preserved food: (1) enzymes, which are naturally occuring substances in living tissues, and are necessary to complete growth and reproduction; and three types of micro-organisms(2) molds, (3) yeasts, and (4) bacteria. All these micro-organisms are present in the soil, water, and air around us. They can be controlled adequately by care in choosing ingredients, scrupulous cleanliness in handling them, and faithful good sense in following the established safe procedures for putting food by at home.

CONVERSIONS FOR PUTTING FOOD BY

Do look at the conversions for metrics (with workable roundings-off) and for altitudeboth in Chapter 3and apply them.

How Enzymes Act

Nature has designed each plant or animal with the ability to program the production of its own enzymes, which are the biochemicals that help the organism to ripen and maturein short, enzymes promote the organic changes necessary to the life cycle of all growing things. However, their action is reversible: they can turn around and cause decomposition, thereby causing changes in color, flavor, and texture, and making food unappetizing.

Their action slows down in cold conditions, increases most quickly between around 85 to 120 degrees Fahrenheit/29 to 49 degrees Celsius, and begins to be destroyed at about 140 F/60 C. However, the natural enzymes in some foods, notably cucumbers, are especially tough. Thus, in making pickles, the heat resistance of enzymes is as much of a concern as the heat resistance of bacteria, molds, and yeasts, all of which are controlled not only by the heat of the processing bath but also by the acid of the vinegar-loaded pickling solution.

How Molds Act

Molds are microscopic fungi whose dry spores (seeds) alight on food and start growing silken threads that can become slight streaks of discoloration in food or cover it with a mat of fuzz.

It used to be felt that a little mold wont hurt you, but modern research has disclosed that only the mold introduced deliberately into the blue cheeses like Roquefort, Gorgonzola, or Stilton is trustworthy. The others, as they grow in food, are capable of producing substances called mycotoxins, and some of them can be hurtful indeed.

In addition, molds eat natural acid present in food, thereby lowering the acidity that is protection against more actively dangerous poisonsbut well have more to say about this in a minute.

Molds are alive but dont grow below 32 F/Zero C; they start to grow above freezing, have their maximum acceleration at 50100 F/1038 C, and then taper off to inactivity beginning around 120 F/49 C; they die with increasing speed at temperatures from 140190 F/6088 C.

How Yeasts Act

The micro-organisms we call yeasts are also fungi grown from spores, and they cause fermentationwhich is delightful in beer, necessary in sauerkraut, and horrid in applesauce. As with molds, severe cold holds them inactive, 50100 F/1038 C hurries their growth, and 140190 F/6088 C destroys them.

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