"canning" news and stories

Happy National Canning Day!

Canning is a simple method in order to preserve various fresh food products from deteriorating or spoiling over time, which is a great way to preserve produce at the height of its ripeness and flavor. For best results, the National Center for Home Food Preservation recommends canning fruits and vegetables within 6 to 12 hours after harvest. Because of the elevated water content in most produce, they tend to spoil easily as a result of moisture loss, microorganism growth, oxygen reactions or the sparked activity of food enyzmes, but properly canning will eliminate such dangers.

For detailed information, tips and recommendations on how to can a variety of food products, check out the website of The National Center for Home Food Preservation -- they provide all the info you'll need to enjoy your favorite foods year-round, from suggested boiling times to recommended equipment.

Become a member of the Slashfood Flickr pool to get a shot at having your photos featured in Feast Your Eyes.

• Pizza on the grill? Heck yes.
• Philadelphians have a can-do attitude about fruits and veggies...
• ...but they really love a good meatball.
• Joe Sixpack has a few words to say about beer records.

• Can you can-can? Sure you can -- can food, that is.
• But what if you just want a little bit of jam? That's cool, too.
• Red O brings Mexican food to L.A. by way of Chicago. (And it's great -- if you can get a reservation.)
• Meanwhile, Lum-Ka-Naad brings Thai food to L.A. by way of Thailand, and it's great, too.
• Anyone up for Korean barbecue? Meet you tomorrow on Wilshire Boulevard.

Photo: Gibbs Smith

'Putting Up: A Seasonal Guide to Canning in the Southern Tradition'
by Stephen Palmer Dowdney
Gibbs Smith -- 2008
Buy it on Amazon

You know how your friend's cousin's boyfriend's grandma, like, totally killed a neighbor by innocently giving her a batch of her home-canned beans that oops, turned out to have a touch of the botulism? That's never going to happen to you. Not on Steve Dowdney's watch.

This can-vangelist has culled years of his own know-how, as well as the collective wisdom of generations of Southern cooks, into a rigorous, nigh-on religious canning primer. The recipes are solid -- almost a shade clinical -- but the opening chapter, packed with equipment tips, altitude and pH charts, preparation terms and step-by-step best practices, could be a stand-alone manual, not to mention the only one you'd ever need to buy.

See what we tested and find out whether the book's worth buying after the jump.

Photo: Kylecathie.com

'Preserved'
by Nick Sandler and Johnny Acton
Kyle Books -- 2009
Buy it on Amazon

As much as the recent glut of home-canning articles, blogs, hardware and bookstore kiosks would have us believe it, man cannot actually live on darling little jams and preciously put-up pickles alone. S'OK -- Messrs Sandler and Acton are here to help you halt the march of time under blankets of aspic, tubs of salt, lashings of booze, heady wood smoke and plain old air.

But if you're like me, you go straight for the pressure-canned tongue.

See what we tested and find out whether the book's worth buying after the jump.