Edible Blue Ridge Fall 2022

LIVING LOCAL

Putting Up and Passing Along

WORDS CHRISTINA NIFONG

I

types and sizes of jars. Honestly, the buy-in is pretty affordable. We wonder now why we waited so long.

I can still remember my first lesson in canning. I had been sent on a newspaper story assignment to the kitchen of a grandmotherly woman and her retired husband. She was to walk me through each step of jam making and I was to relay the information back to readers. Her kitchen was modest. Her demeanor was straightforward and easygoing. She kindly answered my long string of questions with a liberal dash of “hon”s sprinkled among her instructions.

Over time, we fine-tuned our methods. We decided never to can anything with low enough acid to require a pressure canner. We turned the freezer into our friend, believing it was easier and more accessible to shred and freeze zucchini and peppers, blanch and freeze green beans, wash and freeze blueberries, cut off the cob and freeze corn and core and freeze tomatoes than it was to boil and stir and pour any of

them. We explored easy pickling techniques, where vinegar and refrigeration would keep our cucumbers and onions and carrots tasty for long enough, no sealing necessary. at introduction to canning eventually led us to research the most hands-off ways of “putting up”: storing a box of potatoes or butternut squash in a cool, dark, dry place; dropping onions we’d grown into a pair of pantyhose, each bulb separated by a knot; braiding garden garlic and hanging it in the basement; stringing hot peppers onto a fishing line to be later snipped off and crushed. A kernel of knowledge that bloomed into a lifestyle. It’s work to put-up, yes. Just like it’s work to garden and to cook. But there’s an immense sense of accomplishment in taking what the ground gives us and transforming it into food

Nothing I learned that day was particularly surprising. We mashed berries and heated them. Added sugar and pectin and time. We carefully poured searing liquid into prepared jars and listened for a “pop,” letting us know the top had sealed. But something about being gently walked through the steps of canning opened a door wide for me. at visit was my entry into the realm of “putting up” or “putting by” food, a galaxy of techniques used to save the bounty of summer so it can be eaten on the darkest, coldest days of the year. Within a week, I had made my own jam from berries I’d picked at a nearby farm.

for the future. ere’s also a ritual to it that feeds my soul. Lay out the equipment. Chop the veggies. Prepare the jars. Watch the pot boil. Pour. en wait for the satisfying popping sound, signaling that all is right with the universe. When I think of how many delicious meals might not have been had I not learned to can-freeze-store, I’m a little blown away. No pickles or homemade marinara or raspberry sauce or breaded rounds of eggplant stacked in the deep-freeze. No soup stock kept in the fridge. No bright orange jars of chutney given as gifts. It makes me wonder if sharing what we know isn’t its own kind of putting up. Taking the time to teach someone how to can is an investment in the future, a way of doing a little work now that yields so much goodness in the months and years to come. An afternoon of sharing might feed a family for decades. It makes me thankful to my first canning instructor and to all my many teachers since. And it inspires me to be the one to pass the know how along today.

And then I couldn’t stop. Over the years, aided by the guidance of cookbooks, the wisdom of the internet, conversations with friends and a class here or there, my husband and I have canned many flavors of jam, applesauce, marinara, soup stocks, pickles, relishes, green beans and dilly carrots, as well as a variety of chutneys and salsas. “Putting up” simply became one more step in the process of growing our own food. If buying seeds and laying out the garden were tasks of early spring, then canning, freezing, and storing were the chores of fall. Preserving food is central to what I love about eating local. It connects me to the land, to the seasons, to the rhythms of a world bigger than my own tiny corner of deadlines and obligations. For a long while, we MacGyvered what we needed, lifting hot jars from boiling water with the handles of wooden spoons, aiming as best we could without the benefit of a proper funnel, using every decent-sized pot in the kitchen to get enough jars submerged in enough water to make the whole endeavor worthwhile.

Eventually, we leapt, purchasing a water bath canner, tongs, our favorite

36 | EDIBLE BLUE RIDGE FALL 2022