Furlough offers about a dozen classes a year. Each lasts about two hours. She prefers ten or fewer people per class so she can closely monitor everyone. For $10, participants leave class with knowledge and their own preserved food. She usually teaches a strawberry jam class in May, a blueberry-lemon jam class in June, a green bean canning class in July, and a scuppernong grape jam class in September. She’s also taught bread making and yogurt making classes. Topics depend on local produce availability.
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“If it’s something I can get my hands on locally, I do try to use those; if not, I will go to the grocery store,” Furlough says. Hot water bath canning — such as Godwin’s jam making method — is the most accessible, according to Furlough. It’s fine for high-acid foods like fruit-based jellies, jams, preserves, and salsas. They reach boiling point and that’s as hot as they need to get. As a result, jams and jellies are always easiest.
Jams and jellies are always easiest.
“More people would likely have something they can use as a hot water bath as opposed to a pressure canner,” she notes.
Pressure canning is necessary for low-acid foods like green beans, soups, and meats. “Soups or spaghetti sauce with meats might be a little more difficult, and things you would use with your pressure canner,” she says. “They get up to temperature, but it also has the pressure that’s in there, so it gets hotter. That’s the only safe way to can low-acid type things.”
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Food safety is obviously a priority, which is why she encourages all canners to find and use the right recipes. Furlough says she’s available by email and phone to provide clients with approved ideas. And she notes even family favorites or online recipes may not be the best options, “because of things we have learned through the years about food safety. Food canned improperly could make you sick.” But if you’re just getting started, or working with kids, there’s one clear favorite: grape jelly. “You don’t have a lot of preparation work,” she says. “It’s almost foolproof: juice and sugar and some pectin.” The kids learn more than just how to make jelly, though. “Measuring, pouring, following directions…they’re picking up these other skills that go along with it as well.” Skills that can turn into a whole new trade. After an illness eight years ago, Edenton’s Kelly Carey started canning her own food and making cheese as healthier alternatives to processed foods. The hobby turned into a standalone business — Sweet Reasons Farms. She sells pickles, pickled eggs and other preserved treats at farmers’ markets such as Dowdy Park. But she still cans at home. With in-season fruits, she makes jams, jellies and apple pie filling. She preserves corn, peaches, spaghetti, and pizza sauce. All of it for personal use and, best of all, personal enjoyment. “There’s nothing more satisfying than pulling it out in the winter,” she says. “It’s like tasting summer.” — Corinne Saunders
For updates on classes, visit dare.ces.ncsu.edu, email Furlough at dee_furlough@ ncsu.edu, call the Dare office at 252-473-4290, or find NC Cooperative Extension, Dare County on Facebook. To view the NC Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services’ “What’s in Season?” chart, click to ncfarmfresh.com/availability.asp.
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