NEWS for North Dakotans
Agriculture Communication, North Dakota State
University
7 Morrill Hall, Fargo, ND 58105-5665
July 23, 1998
I grew up eating canned food, but not much of it came off a store shelf. My mom was a canning machine: dill pickles, sweet pickles, beet pickles, bread-and-butter pickles, pickled green and yellow beans, pickled green tomatoes, pickled corn on the cob, corn relish, sweet relish, hot dog relish, canned peaches, canned pears, canned stew meat—even canned meatballs—and a lot of other canned goodies I'm sure I'm forgetting.
Mom canned food to preserve the bounty of her garden and our annual butchering. And I'm pretty sure she enjoyed canning too, based on everything she put up. As for me, there isn't a September that goes by when I don't think back to how our kitchen smelled on those fall mornings as I was getting ready to go to school.
But there's more to canning than good taste and memories. My wife, Nicki, and I do it partly because of tradition but more because we know the quality of what goes into all those pint and quart glass jars. Another reason we can is because of convenience.
Now, anyone who's canned anything knows that there's some work involved, so they may be thinking that I'm a bit confused when I say canning is convenient. But I'm not talking about the actual canning process. I'm referring to the eating of home-canned foods.
When you can, you've got to be thinking ahead, like to one of those frigid January days when you rush home only to discover that your cupboards are barren of anything appetizing. Since we've been canning, that scenario never seems to unfold at our home. With home-canned food on hand, there always seems to be something that we can pull from our pantry and make a meal of. Even if it's only a sandwich consisting of bread-and-butter pickles. Well, maybe a little mayonnaise, too.
Judging from the displays of canning equipment I see in stores during the summer and fall, I'm willing to bet that canning won't go out of style anytime soon. In fact, its popularity may be on the rise. If you're thinking about giving canning a try or even if you're a veteran canner, you may be interested in the following recipe. It's just one of many contained in a publication titled "Canning and Freezing Tomatoes" (FN-175), available from the North Dakota State University Extension Service.
Tomato/Green Chile Salsa
Yield: 3 pintsIngredients:
3 cups peeled, cored, chopped tomatoes
3 cups seeded, chopped long green chiles
¾ cup chopped onions
1 jalapeno pepper, seeded and finely chopped
6 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1½ cups vinegar, white or cider
½ teaspoon ground cumin*
2 teaspoons oregano leaves*
1½ teaspoons table salt
*optional—spice amounts may be adjusted but do not make other adjustments to this recipe.
Procedure:
Wash tomatoes, dip in boiling water for 30 to 60 seconds or until skins split and then dip into cold water. Slip off skins, remove cores and chop. Combine all ingredients in a large saucepan and heat, stirring frequently, until mixture boils. Reduce heat and simmer for 20 minutes, stirring occasionally. Ladle into hot pint jars, leaving ½-inch headspace. Adjust lids and process in a boiling water canner for 15 to 20 minutes, depending upon altitude (15 minutes at 1,000 feet or lower and 20 minutes for higher elevations). Caution: Wear rubber gloves while handling chiles or wash hands thoroughly with soap and water before touching your face.
What's Your Take on This, Julie?
Salsa has become the hottest condiment in the United States, even surpassing catsup in popularity. No wonder it's so popular with home canners these days.
A ¼-cup serving of this salsa recipe contains about 20 calories, 0 grams of fat, 85 percent of the recommended daily allowance for vitamin C and 43 percent of the recommended daily allowance for vitamin A. To keep your snacks slim, pair your salsa with baked chips instead of fried.
Like other foods that are preserved at home, canned salsa comes with a list of safety precautions. Namely, don't experiment with the recipe created for canning. If you've created a salsa masterpiece, you'd be better off freezing it, for safety sake, rather than canning it.
It's especially important to follow current recommendations for canning, which appear in numerous food-preservation publications available from the North Dakota State University Extension Service. Old recipes—even Grandma's—may not be safe, based on current research.
The main foodborne illness associated with home-canned foods is botulism. It's also the deadliest. The bacteria that causes it thrives in an oxygen-free, or "anaerobic," environment, such as a sealed jar or can. The hallmark symptoms are double vision and paralysis, with death being the worst-case outcome. Here's a case in point from our own backyard: In the early 1930s, North Dakota made national news when several people from the Grafton area died after eating a salad containing improperly home-canned green peas.
Low-acid food such as vegetables, and meat, and many mixtures of food, generally require the use of a pressure canner instead of a water-bath canner to kill botulism spores that might be present. Salsa is a mixture of acidic foods, such as tomatoes, and low-acid foods such as peppers and onions.
Acid ingredients in salsa help preserve it, and we need additional acid—lemon juice or vinegar—because the natural acidity of the tomatoes may not be high enough. Vinegar should be at least 5 percent acid. You can substitute lemon juice in a recipe calling for vinegar but DO NOT substitute vinegar in a recipe calling for lemon juice. Lemon juice is more acidic than vinegar.
When preparing salsa, always start with high-quality ingredients. Follow the recipe's formulation exactly. You can substitute one type of pepper for another to vary the heat, but don't vary the amount the recipe calls for. On the other hand, spices such as cumin and oregano can be varied to suit personal taste. DO NOT thicken salsas with cornstarch before canning.
Remember, you can enjoy your garden's bounty all winter long, but don't take undue risks with food preservation. If you have questions, contact your local office of the NDSU Extension Service.
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Sources: Dean Hulse (701) 231-6136 and Julie Garden-Robinson (701) 231-7187
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