August 9, 2001

Prairie Fare: Kitchen Crisis

By Julie Garden-Robinson, Food and Nutrition Specialist
NDSU Extension Service

Over the last few years I’ve fielded a lot of interesting questions from consumers. I’ll never forget the exasperated caller who was dealing with a kitchen crisis. She asked why 12 jars of raspberry jam had blown their lids two weeks after the jam had been canned. She took a break from scraping sticky red jam off her walls and floor to call me and find out what might have happened. She had a few choice words for that jam.

I had to make an educated guess after asking for more details. Most likely, forms of bacteria (called spores) found naturally in soil were present and had produced gas in the air-tight container. The jam probably wasn’t contaminated with the type of heat resistant bacterial spores that can produce the potentially deadly botulism toxin. Botulism toxin is more commonly associated with low-acid foods like home-canned vegetables. Jellies and jams are naturally acidic from the fruit they contain, which helps preserve the food. The sugar also acts as a preservative.

Without expensive lab testing, there’s no way you can know for sure what happened. She may not have washed her fruit well enough or measured her ingredients very carefully. She hadn’t heat-processed her jelly in a water bath canner. In any event, she was cautious cleaning up the sticky mess and disinfecting her kitchen. I wonder if she ever canned again?

Canning can be risky business if you don’t follow safe guidelines. All food can contain a variety of microorganisms including bacteria, molds and yeast. Cooks who enjoy experimenting with recipes should set aside their creativity when they’re canning. To be safe, home canners need to stick to the ingredients, quantities and procedures outlined in research-tested recipes.

To be safe, low-acid foods like meat, seafood, poultry, vegetables and many mixtures of foods must be canned in a pressure canner to kill potential toxin-producing spores. Pressure canning, which creates a temperature of 240 F, can kill bacterial spores. The maximum temperature created by water bath canning is 212 F.

Water bath canning is recommended for acidic foods like canned pickles, jellies, jams, fruits and tomatoes. The acidic ingredients help preserve the foods. Since lower-acid varieties of tomatoes have been developed, canned tomato recipes call for additional acid, like lemon juice or vinegar.

Salsa, or hot sauce, is a popular condiment that is quite easy to can. A mixture of tomatoes, onions, peppers and spices, salsa is more popular than ketchup. If you’ve never canned before and have some prolific tomato and pepper plants, you may want to try your hand at canning salsa. Here are a few tips:

• Follow the formulation exactly and measure/weigh ingredients carefully. Use bottled lemon or lime juice or vinegar as indicated. If a recipe calls for vinegar, you can substitute lime or lemon juice. If a recipe calls for lemon juice, do not substitute vinegar, because it is less acidic.
• Handle hot peppers carefully. Wear plastic gloves and wash your hands before touching your face.
• You may safety decrease the amount of spice called for, but do not increase the spice amounts.
• To alter the "heat" in salsa, you can safely substitute one type of chili pepper for another, but keep the total amount of pepper the same.
• Do not thicken salsas with cornstarch before canning. Doing so may make the mixture too thick for proper heat penetration.

Here’s a tested salsa recipe developed by the Washington State University Extension Service. A 3-tablespoon serving of salsa contains about 25 calories and no fat. For more information about canning, contact your county office of the NDSU Extension Service or visit our website: http://www.ag.ndsu.nodak.edu/food.htm A publication, "From the Garden to the Table: Salsa!" (FN-584) can be printed from the website.

Tomato Paste Salsa
Yield: 16 pints

Ingredients:
3 quarts tomatoes, peeled and chopped
4 cups green peppers, chopped (about 2 large bell peppers)
1 12-ounce jar jalapeno peppers (in vinegar, drained)
1 cup long green chilies, seeded and chopped (about 3 chilies)
3 cups onions, chopped (about 3 medium)
3 cups celery, chopped
4 cloves garlic, minced
2 12-ounce cans tomato paste
2 cup bottled lemon juice
1 Tablespoon salt
1 cup sugar
1 Tablespoon ground cumin

Procedure:
Combine all ingredients in a large saucepan. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat and continue boiling for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally. Ladle hot salsa into hot pint jars, leaving 1/2-inch headspace. Wipe jar rims. Cap with properly pretreated lids. Adjust lids and process in a boiling water canner for 20 minutes.

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Source: Julie Garden-Robinson, (701) 231-7187, jgardenr@ndsuext.nodak.edu
Editor: Tom Jirik, (701) 231-9629, tjirik@ndsuext.nodak.edu