canning & jamming

Summer bounty means an abundance of fresh fruits and vegetables—produce that tastes as if it was just minutes from the field. Take tomatoes. Whether you grow your own or purchase them at the Uptown or Lion’s Club farmers’ markets, you can count on juicy summer tomatoes to have a sweet acid taste and a fresh, tangy aroma, unlike their winter counterparts, which are mealy, amorphous in taste with a whiff of plastic container.

For generations, people have preserved summer produce to enjoy over the winter. Traditional preservation methods—some thousands of years old—include salt, oil, sugar, alcohol, vinegar, drying, cold storage and fermentation. Vacuum processing—basically the dehydration and rehydration of foods—was introduced in the 19^th century; there are records of British officers ordering peas from the ultra-upscale Harrods department store to be sent to the Crimea during that war. Home canning began around the turn of the twentieth century and really caught on with the World War II impetus to grow Victory gardens. Then came freezing—the biggest twentieth century contribution to preserving food.

Our forebears had no choice; they had to either preserve food or starve in the winter. That is not a dilemma for us today—we can just run to the grocery store. Happily, with food preservation no longer a necessity, we can simply have fun collecting plentiful summer produce from our local markets and experimenting with ways of combining flavors in unusual ways to create singular winter treats. You can still “put up” tomatoes or peaches, but how about lemon verbena jam, rose hip jelly or strawberry jam with a grind or two of black pepper? Just ask Woodhaven Drive resident Susan Marquesen, a certified master food preserver.

Marquesen received her certification in 2011 at a three-day training program at Penn State and says she is one of only two master food preservers in the state. Graduates of the program volunteer to help the university’s extension services teach people about preserving. She has spoken all over southwestern Pennsylvania, including at Mt. Lebanon Public Library. “I thoroughly enjoy it,” she says.

Marquesen grew up in Iowa where, as in many Midwest farming states, preserving food is an ingrained part of the culture. She returned to her roots as a young mother; today she even grows some of her own food. Her cupboards and freezers are filled with glistening containers of relishes, jams, salsas, beans, pickles, sauces and herbs.

She finds preserving summer’s fresh-picked produce gratifying, particularly because when winter comes, the produce available in local stores is shipped from warmer climes and loses nutrients as it travels from field to plate. Preserving is economical, she adds, because you can buy food at peak season when it’s inexpensive and use it later. And philosophically, she adds, “You can always eat local. Plus, you know what’s in your food, key points for those with health issues, religious dietary laws and preferences for absolute organic.”

There’s a lot of food chemistry involved in preserving, and there are safety concerns; great-grandmother’s favorite piccalilli recipe may be a target for today’s new strains of bacteria for instance. Although freezing is relatively straightforward so long as sanitary precautions are taken, for other methods Marquesen advises using only tested recipes from trusted sources. Drying works best with a dehydrator, she adds.

Once you’ve finished and placed the finished products in containers, she suggests labeling and dating the contents. “We think we’ll remember what’s in the container, but we usually don’t,” she says. “All food has a shelf life.”

Marquesen has years of experience, but even she has not explored the full range of food preserving. “I’ve never done fermenting, salting or smoking,” she notes. “I’ve not done meat, either. I’d like to make my own prosciutto. I keep meaning to try rullepølse, which is flank steak rolled and pickled. My family used to get it when we visited our ancestral home in Elk Horn, Iowa (also the home of a yearly Danish festival). It was a very big deal.”

Admittedly the easiest methods of preserving are with freezing, sugar, vinegar and alcohol. Yet even with these methods, the results can be mixed, as this writer’s many years’ home preserving experience can testify. Fresh peach ice cream is a sublime treat, for example, but the texture is not as silky after long term storage. And mincemeat and brandied fruit are challenging—it may take multiple tries to achieve a satisfactory result. On the other hand, delicious results are possible with jam and chutney creations, hot pepper infused vinegar and black currant brandy.

Marquesen offers some recipes. Give them a try. The summer sunshine will brighten your winter table. The recipes that follow are from the National Center for Home Food Preservation ^[1] at the University of Georgia. Many of the ingredients are available at the Uptown Farmers’ Market, Saturdays, 9 a.m.-noon or the Lions Club Farmers’ Market at Mt. Lebanon United Lutheran Church, Wednesdays from 4-7. Both markets run through October.