Last fall, MSU Extension hosted the National Extension Association of Family and Consumer Science Agents with more than 700 colleagues from across the nation in attendance. By attending, I met colleagues from Idaho and Colorado who graciously shared an opportunity for you to participate in one of their on-line food preservation Extension classes.
Do you want to learn how to safely can, dry or freeze your garden’s bounty? University of Idaho Extension invites you to enroll in Preserve@Home, an online food preservation class to teach individuals how to safely preserve a variety of food products. Participants learn how to produce high-quality, preserved foods and the science behind food preservation and food safety.
The registration deadline is Monday,January 17, 2017. The first lesson of the 6-week course opens online on Thursday,January 19 at 1 pm MST. Each lesson includes online text (that can be downloaded and printed), online bulletin board to facilitate participant discussion, and a real-time weekly chat to interact with classmates and instructors. The weekly online chat session for the first lesson will be on Thursday, January 26 from 1:00 to 1:45 p.m. MST. Topics to be covered include: Foodborne Illness – causes and prevention, Spoilage and Canning Basics, Canning High Acid foods, Canning Specialty High Acid Foods – pickles, salsa, jams, jellies, etc., Canning Low Acid Foods, and Freezing and Drying. Supplemental materials will include materials on planting varieties for food preservation, cold storage and root cellaring.
The cost is $35 plus the cost of supplemental materials. Many of the supplemental materials are available free, online. Class size is limited. For more information, contact Laura Sant at 208-852-1097 or lsant@uidaho.edu.
Growing up, my family raised beef. I would guess about 85% of our meals were beef-based. No one in my family did much hunting or fishing. A few of the hired hands occasionally enjoyed hunting, so every once in a while, we would get some delicious elk jerky or deer salami as a treat. Not only did we have several cuts of beef in the freezer at all times, we also had meat stored in our food room on the shelves in jars. (We lived pretty far from town, so it really was a room, not a pantry. We had both a food storage room and root cellar in the basement. We could have been stranded on the farm for months and we would not have starved. )
My mom always canned beef. I didn't pay much attention to the canning process, until I got older, but I always loved the soft, tender, juicy canned beef. Mom would open the cans, boil the meat (as an extra precaution) and serve with noodles and soy sauce.
According to the USDA, "If it is possible that any deviation from the USDA-endorsed methods occurred, to prevent the risk of botulism, low-acid and tomato foods should be boiled in a
saucepan before consuming even if you detect no signs of spoilage. At altitudes below 1,000 ft, boil foods for 10 minutes. Add an additional minute of boiling time for each additional 1,000 ft elevation. However, this is not intended to serve as a recommendation for consuming foods known to be significantly underprocessed according to current standards and recommended methods. It is not a guarantee that all possible defects and hazards with non-recommended methods can be overcome by
this boiling process."
The USDA gives the following directions:
"All low-acid foods canned according to the approved recommendations may be eaten without boiling them when you are sure of all the following:
Food was processed in a pressure canner.
Gauge of the pressure canner was accurate.
Up-to-date researched process times and pressures were used for the size of jar, style of pack, and kind of food being canned.
The process time and pressure recommended for sterilizing the food at your altitude was followed.
Jar lid is firmly sealed and concave.
Nothing has leaked from jar.
No liquid spurts out when jar is opened.
No unnatural or “off” odors can be detected."
I do know families who process their meat and then, without boiling, add mayonnaise and make it into a sandwich spread. While that sounds delicious, I am like my mom and I always like to take that extra precaution of boiling.
My upbringing on beef didn't deter me from canning game meat when it has been available to me. I have canned venison and elk and find I like it just as well as, if not better than, the canned beef I grew up eating.
Meat is a low acid food and must be pressure canned. Acidic foods are hot water bath processed. Some people find pressure canning intimidating, but it is actually pretty easy. Honestly, meat is one of the easiest products to can. I generally do a raw pack, so it is a matter of putting the meat cubes in the jar, sealing with a lid and starting the processing. Once while I was canning, a neighbor stopped over and watched the process. She could not believe how simple it was. Her family does quite a bit of hunting and fishing and they have since started to can portions of their harvest. It is a great way to preserve meat tying up the freezer. (The meat doesn't have to be pressure processed right away, it can be frozen first, until a more convenient time -- provided you have the freezer space.)
Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks has prepared this video on canning meat from your hunting and fishing.
Right now I'm thinking about using a can of meat to prepare supper. When my Mom cooked the meat and noodles, it was a nice, simple meal with salad and veggies added. My family also enjoyed canned Flathead cherries as a dessert. I know it was great to have the canned goods when Mom had lots of mouths at the table and little time to prepare. It was not uncommon for 8-12 people to be around our farm table. Lots of good food and stories passed around that table! Fortunately, some good food preservation skills got ingrained, too.
You can find MontGuides here for your food preservation needs or you can access the National Center for Home Food Preservation or the USDA Complete Guide to Home Canning. While home canning and food preservation is relatively simple, there are still some scientific principles at work and food safety concerns, so be sure to follow tested, recommended guidelines and recipes from reliable sources. Also, remember to get your dial-gauge pressure canner tested for accurahere to find an MSU Extension Office near you and call to see if they offer the free pressure canner testing service.
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I’ve been feeling a little under pressure lately. I suppose it is from things pushing at me
from a few different directions, both at work and in my personal life. I bet I’m not alone. We probably all have
seasons of our lives that are more pressure filled. I think of the years I spent
growing up on a farm north of Joplin.
This time of year seemed full of pressure trying to get the crop in, and
when the weather wasn’t cooperating, it was worse. No matter the pressure of
the season, the farm girl in me still loves harvest time.
Now that I’m an Extension agent, harvest makes me think of
pressure in a different way. People
around the area are harvesting garden crops, and canning is underway. If you are canning any low-acid foods, you’ll
be using a pressure canner. Pressure
canners typically come in either dial-gauge or weighted-gauge. A dial-gauge canner should be tested yearly
to make sure it reads correctly, ensuring that you are not under-processing
food. Under-processing can result not
only in reduced quality, but also in lower temperatures that allow some
terrible things to grow in that jar of low-acid canned food. Among the scariest and deadliest is botulinum
toxin. If you are doing canning with a
dial-gauge canner, it is totally worth the 15 minutes at the Extension Office
to get your canner gauge tested. It
absolutely beats botulism, which, if you survive, will take way more than 15
months recovery!
Most Extension offices test canners for free. Extension also offers guidance and assistance
for home canners. Last year, I had the
good fortune of being able to spend two days learning from Elizabeth Andress,
an Extension Food Safety Specialist and the leading authority on home canning
in the nation. Dr. Andress explained the
many testing procedures in place before the USDA authorizes recipes for home
canning. Reliable and tested home
canning recipes and procedures can be found in the latest editions of So Easy to Preserve, the USDA Guide to Home Canning (which is
available free for download on the web) and the latest editions of the Ball Blue Book and Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving. MSU Extension also has Montguides available
on our website with resources for the home preserver. Any editions of the above sources from prior
to 2006 should be discarded. From
elevation to product density to heat penetration to pressure, there are all
kinds of science considerations in canning. Like all science, our abilities and
equipment change over time. You wouldn’t
want a doctor relying on the science from 1930 to perform surgery on you, would
you? Yet, you’d be surprised at how many
people still want to continue to use Great Aunt Edna’s Salsa recipe from that
same decade!
The registration deadline is Monday, January 17, 2017. The first lesson of the 6-week course opens online on Thursday, January 19 at 1 pm MST. Each lesson includes online text (that can be downloaded and printed), online bulletin board to facilitate participant discussion, and a real-time weekly chat to interact with classmates and instructors. The weekly online chat session for the first lesson will be on Thursday, January 26 from 1:00 to 1:45 p.m. MST. Topics to be covered include: Foodborne Illness – causes and prevention, Spoilage and Canning Basics, Canning High Acid foods, Canning Specialty High Acid Foods – pickles, salsa, jams, jellies, etc., Canning Low Acid Foods, and Freezing and Drying. Supplemental materials will include materials on planting varieties for food preservation, cold storage and root cellaring.
