Savor summer

Canning

summer goodness

Story by Cathy Spaulding

Fort Gibson grower deno Clopton rises early in the morning to prepare her canned goods for muskogee Farmers' market.

ort Gibson produce grower Deno Clopton gets up early to prepare her jars of fruit preserves and apple butter for market.

"I was cooking this morning at 3 a.m.," Clopton said while selling at a recent Muskogee Farmers' Market. By mid-morning that day, Clopton had sold all but a couple dozen jars.

Canning is one of the best ways to keep the goodness and nutrition of summer produce into fall, winter and beyond.

Rebecca Jennings of Fort Gibson said properly canned foods can last for years. "It's like canned food you buy in a grocery store, except it's healthy and fresh and it's in glass jars," she said. "Canning preserves it."

Jennings grows her produce on her Fort Gibson property along the Grand River. She said she starts canning "as soon as the garden starts producing."

The work starts "in the heat of the year," Jennings said. "The worst time to be in the kitchen as a canner is the best time to can — the hottest time of the year."

There are two main ways to can food.

Pressure canning involves using a special pot with a regulator to help control pressure inside the pot.

Water canning involves boiling jars of food.

Food safety is paramount in canning, said Melanie Taylor, McIntosh County Family and Consumer Science educator. "You can get a lot of things in there, spores and things that cause botulism," Taylor said. "You definitely need to watch your canning times and make sure that you're hot water bath canning or you're pressure canning, depending on the acidity of the food, just to make sure that it's going to be safe."

Food acidity determines whether to can with pressure or hot water, Taylor said.

Learn more

• Muskogee County OSU Extension Office: (918) 686-7200; https://extension. okstate.edu/county/muskogee/index.html

Shannon Gawf of eufaula pulls a jar of canned fruit from a pressure canner. She was part of a canning workshop presented by the mcintosh County oSu extension.

"Low acid foods — foods that are not acidic enough to prevent the growth of bacteria — those definitely need to have some acidity added and be pressure canned," she said. "Tomatoes are usually considered to be a high acid food, so they can be hot water bath canned."

High acid foods include jams, jellies, pickles (because you add the vinegar), Taylor said. High acid fruits include peaches, plums and apples. "Melons and pineapples aren't quite as acidic," she said.

Low acid foods include most other vegetables, such as carrots, peppers, green beans, corn, she said. "Any vegetable that you're going to pickle goes up on the acid scale because of the pickling," Taylor said. "Stuff that you add to it and the vinegar."

Jennings said her main advice is to get the "Ball Blue Book of Canning." "It's like the canner's Bible," she said. "It has all your canning times, step by step."

She said her great aunts did canning. "I moved where we had a huge garden and I wanted to preserve my own food, so I got the 'Ball Blue Book of Canning' and followed it verbatim," she said.