Pezza - Home harvesting: canning, curing, pickling, preserving, vegetables, fruits, meats

hatherleigh

Hatherleigh Press is committed to preserving and protecting the natural resources of the earth. Environmentally responsible and sustainable practices are embraced within the companys mission statement.

Backyard Farming: Home Harvesting
Text copyright 2013 Hatherleigh Press

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.
eISBN: 978-1-57826-464-3

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic or otherwise, without written permission from the publisher.

Cover Design by D CDESIGN
Interior Design by Nick Macagnone

v3.1

With almost any harvest, whether from the garden, raised livestock, hunting, fishing, or even wild crafting, food preservation has almost always been a part of the end process. From ancient times to the modern day, the techniques developed for preserving ones harvest are still being practiced, both in the home and in the commercial market.

Food preservation is in your life each and every day, even if you have never canned a vegetable or frozen a piece of meat in your life. If you have purchased food in a tin can you have purchased preserved food. Enjoyed any beef jerky lately? Bought jelly or jam? Prepared a box of pasta or frozen pizza? Each and every one of these examples employs a time-tested method of preserved food. Most people do not even give a thought as to the many ways that preserving food affects their lives each and every day, and this is mainly due to the fact that they did not preserve the food themselves.

However, with the rising return of home gardens, urban farms, homesteads, small farms, and even farmers markets and roadside stands, this trend is changing. More and more households are turning once more to home preserving for their excess meat and produce.

In this book, we will begin by exploring a bit of the history of preserving food, and the ancient origins of some of the most common methods still being used today. Presented in an easy-to-understand and non-intimidating way, this book is your guide to rediscovering your roots through traditional, albeit updated, preservation techniques. Depending on what you plan on producing, you may want to try one, two, or all of the methods discussed.

The first step is to go through the methods. Decide which process is right for you or the particular food you are preserving, and dive in. Food preservation takes some time; but during the dead of winter, when the roads are covered in snow, and the last thing you want to do is head out to the store, youll appreciate the foods that you put up from your harvest.

This book is meant to serve as a basic primer for those just beginning to keep and preserve their harvests. It is a short but concise book that will touch on all of the major methods available to new homesteaders to greatly extend the use and shelf life of their produce. So find a comfy seat, consider your harvest plans for the coming seasons, and start making your own preservation plans.

Kim Pezza grew up among orchards and dairy and beef farms having lived most of her life in the Finger Lakes region of New York state. She has raised pigs, poultry and game birds, rabbits and goats, and is experienced in growing herbs and vegetables. In her spare time, Kim also teaches workshops in a variety of areas, from art and simple computers for seniors, to making herb butter, oils, and vinegars. She continues to learn new techniques and skills and is currently looking to turn her grandparents 1800s farm into a small, working homestead.

T he act of preserving food is as old as civilization, and like many of the things we take for granted today, the methods of preservation were most likely first discovered by accident and/or trial and error.

Some of the methods that we still use today trace their origins all the way back to ancient times, where forms of fermentation, oil packing, pickling, salting, drying, and smoking were all practiced regularly. One of the earliest recorded examples of food preservation is from ancient Egypt and shows the drying of grains and its storage in sealed silos.

Besides the Egyptians, the Greeks, Romans, Sumerians, and Asians all used various techniques of food preservation, and stored their food in clay jars. Their use of preservation endured and evolved into methods that we still use today.

But why was food preservation developed to begin with? The need for preservation arose due to the fact that in some areas, the climate dictated when food could or could not be grown. In other areas, especially those subject to harsh weather, raising livestock could be difficult if done year-round; instead livestock were raised for most of the year and would be slaughtered before winter set in. In both scenarios, the fruits, vegetables, and meats preserved and put aside after the harvest had to take people through the hard months when fresh foods would not be available. And, as food begins to spoil right at harvest time, if the people were to survive the lean times of certain seasons (whether it be the cold snowy winters in some regions or extremely hot summers in others), they had to be able to keep their food from spoiling.

Preservation, when done properly, prevents the growth of bacteria, fungi, and other microorganisms that would otherwise render the food unfit for consumption. It also prevents foods such as meats from going rancid by slowing fat oxidation, while at the same time (usually) maintaining the nutritional value of the food, along with its taste and texture. We say usually here, because there are times when some foods are altered, sometimes drastically, through preservation. One example of this is the use of pickling to preserve vegetables.

Historically, the way food was preserved would depend on location and even culture. As a result, diets would often differ from place to place, even if their climates or growing conditions were similar.

For example, in early colonial America some of the commonly used methods of preservation were smoking, drying, salting, pickling, and jellying. Drying would be used primarily in the southern states or territories where sun and heat was plentiful and foods could dry thoroughly. In northern climates, by contrast, jellying and pickling were the methods of choice, simply due to the fact that drying wasnt a feasible alternative due to lack of necessary sun time needed to properly dry the foods.