Having access to to a garden as well as fruit trees means a sometimes overwhelming amount of abundance. Waste not, want not, as the old saying goes, and as a true believer, I've learned about how to eat all sorts of things that I never saw in grocery stores before, from garlic scapes to radish seed pods to fennel flowers.The gorgeous hot summer weather this year meant another bumper crop of blueberries and Rainier cherries at the farm. My dad's yard was also producing lots of Italian plums and I had also found nearby the farm a bunch of wild Damson plum trees loaded with fruit that I also *had* to pick. Having way too much fruit seems like a silly problem to have, but since I hate to waste food and there's only so much I can stuff my face with or foist upon friends, family, and strangers, I decided to learn how to can.
Canning is something that I'd been interested in learning more about since starting a garden, but my only real exposure was when Thom showed me how to can green beans a few years back. It just seemed like it took a lot of effort, what with all the jars and the lids and the pots and other various canning supplies one needed. With a kitchen already stuffed full, I was hesitant to start up another project that required buying stuff only used for this one activity. Also, there were lots of warnings about food poisoning, botulism, and other not-so-pleasant cootie action that can get you if you don't properly can the food and investigating all the various means not to kill yourself (or others) wasn't all that exciting too me. However, "how hard can it be?" is not my maxim for nothing, so with a little creativity in the equipment department and a lot of googling to make sure I was on the right track and wouldn't kill anyone, I got started.
The first investment I decided to make was a cherry pitter. Now I had been told by the ever-resourceful Linda that one could make a pitter out of a paper clip, but seeing that I had pounds upon pounds of cherries, I decided to take the easy route. Good thing too, as it worked like a dream and also made quick work of the Damson plums, and when Linda gave it a try herself, she promptly went out and bought one, too.
Beyond that, for canning, one needs jars, lids, a pot that's tall enough to cover one's jars with at least an inch of water, a rack or something to put the jars on in the pot so it doesn't rest directly on the pot, a jar lifter, and a funnel to get started. There are lots of "canning kits" out there that include the pot, rack, and all the equipment, or just the equipment minus the pot; however, not being one who likes to invest in things upfront that I might never use again, I improvised. I used a pasta pot that I had, which was tall enough to can half-pint jars although not the quart sized ones. (I originally had bought pint jars, but then realized that a pint of jam was quite a lot and switched it out for the half-pint size instead.) So that limited my canning to smaller amounts, which was probably a good thing at this early stage. Instead of a jar lifter, I borrowed my friend's "plate retriever tongs" (a tool that Chinese people use for lifting hot plates out of steamers or rice cookers). She also had a little round cake rack that fit into my pot, and instead of a funnel, I decided to just use a measuring cup, figuring that would help me to pour precisely enough into the jars. Since it was my first time canning, I didn't have any jars or lids, so I went to the store and got a dozen for about ten dollars. If you are reusing old jars, all you need are new lids since old lids will not seal properly. With that, I had the basics covered.
Besides what equipment one actually needs, I would say one of the most confusing things about canning is the whole debate about whether or not to use commercial pectin in your jams. Pectin is found naturally in fruit with some fruit having higher concentrations and others having lower ones. When heated long enough with sugar and lemon juice, the naturally occurring pectin in fruit causes it to gel, thus creating the spreadable goodness we associate with jam. (This article titled "Jam Making 101" has a pretty good explanation of how it all works). However, some of the lower pectin fruits like strawberries or blueberries take longer to gel, and the longer fruit is cooked, the less fresh it tastes and the longer one has to spend stirring and stirring at a hot stove. So, one can buy powdered or liquid pectin at the store to cut down on cook time and still have a firm to quite firm jam or jelly. Many of the recipes that I read though, especially more contemporary ones, seemed to avoid using commercial pectin for various reasons like cost, taste, or texture, thus leaving one to more of a trial and error in terms of knowing how long to cook the jam for. The other difficulty I had with most recipes was that a lot of them called for a lot of sugar. Many of the recipes were almost 2/3 sugar, which seemed pointless to me because the flavor of the fruit was just masked with it. However, because sugar is a preservative, there were many warnings of how not adding enough sugar might result in jam that goes bad quickly.
In my first attempt, I decided to forgo the effort it would take to pit several pounds of cherries and go with the blueberries that I already had in the fridge. After reading what seemed like an endless number of variations of the same, I went with a recipe from Food in Jars for blueberry jam that had me add in only 3 Tablespoons of commercial pectin rather than the whole box as some of the other recipes called for. I eliminated the spices because I wanted just pure blueberry this first time. When making jam, the fruit goes through various stages as the water from the fruit is boiled off. It oftentimes starts with a vigorous boil and foam before settling down to more small bubbles as it thickens. Then you test it by putting a dab on a cold plate in the freezer to see if it has thickened enough. However, since it was my first time trying out making the jam, I didn't know at all what I was supposed to be looking for so I just kept the jam boiling until it seemed pretty firm on the cold plate. I poured them into the jars, wiped the mouth, put on the lids, and then popped them back into the water to can. When I took them out, one by one, the little popping sound that signals a success in terms of sealing the jam occurred, so I considered that a success.
The next day, after the jam had cooled, I of course had to try one to see how it all turned out and it was okay. Yes, just okay because first, I had clearly overcooked the jam. It was not quite like cranberry jelly sliding out of the can, but it definitely had a crisp quality to it that was not what I liked in my jam. The second thing was that it was just too sweet and a little too lemony. In my anxiety not to poison anyone, I had included more sugar than I liked and also added extra lemon juice, both preservatives. I like my fruit jam to taste like fruit, and so I was determined to experiment a little more in the next batch.
Having one jamming experience under my belt, I decided to get a little more ambitious and try a Rainier Cherry recipe. There aren't a lot of recipes online for this sort of sweet cherry as Bings are usually less expensive and not everyone has access to a Rainier cherry tree. I decided to use David Leibowitz's "No-recipe Cherry Jam" recipe, which, as it says, wasn't really a recipe but more about proportions of fruit and sugar. Even though he said to use 3/4 the amount of sugar to cherries, I dialed it back to more about half and it was still quite sweet. But it set up nicely and without the pectin, I didn't have to worry about the jam jelling too firmly. Instead, I used up a lot of plates trying to tell if the jam was ready. Ultimately, it turned out decently.
This experiment was followed by this plum jam, and then this one, peach jam, as well as apricot jam and finally apple butter. After the third recipe, I broke down and went and bought a kit from the store that included the jar lifter and the funnel. Those were definitely worth the investment as hot boiling water and hot boiling fruit are both not nice against the skin.
At the end of all this, I think I can now say that I can can. At least I can can fruit jam; vegetables and other things are another level I have yet to attain. Seeing all the jewel-like jars lined up on the kitchen counter and knowing that all year I'll be able to taste the abundance of summer is definitely satisfying. Also, being able to share the bounty of summer in a form that's not so ephemeral as "eat this now before it rots!" has also been fun. Homegrown and homemade is not that easy to come by these days, at least in my circles, but it's so appreciated and I think generally speaking, there is a revival of sorts going on in this area as well.
As for the whole pectin, no pectin debate, whether it's the supermarket version or the low-sugar Pomona's version, I enter my preference as no pectin. I like being able to control the viscosity of the jam by cooking time rather than how much commercial pectin I add and I generally like a looser jam, so it fits my preference. I also usually end up with pectin blobs in the jam when I use it or overly "crunchy" jam although it may just be that I don't understand how to follow directions in regards to using commercial pectin (definitely nothing new here!). As for adding too little sugar to my jams, I have yet to poison anyone; perhaps I need to add a "eat at your own risk" label to my jars that I give away. :) Ultimately, I realize that jam making is about proportions and rules of thumb rather than preciseness; one must be able to adapt according to how ripe the fruit is and how sweet it is rather than being tied down to exact measurements in a recipe. I'm done putting up for the year, but look forward to the next season of abundance now that I can can.
The first lily of June opens its red mouth.
All over the sand road where we walk
multiflora rose climbs trees cascading
white or pink blossoms, simple, intense
the scene drifting like colored mist.
The arrowhead is spreading its creamy
clumps of flower and the blackberries
are blooming in the thickets. Season of
joy for the bee. The green will never
again be so green, so purely and lushly
new, grass lifting its wheaty seedheads
into the wind. Rich fresh wine
of June, we stagger into you smeared
with pollen, overcome as the turtle
laying her eggs in roadside sand.
