Subject: rec.food.preserving FAQ

From: [email-masked] (BASEL, LESLIE)
Date: 27 Nov 1994 19:23 MST

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS (FAQ) in the group rec.food.preserving

This file is a compliation of shared knowledge and answers to 
frequently asked questions of the group rec.food.preserving.  As
such, this file is updated.  Be a contributor--point out mistakes,
write sections and reviews, provide us with new sources.  All
contributors will be cited in this file.

Contributors: Diane Ferrell, Leslie Basel, (your name here)
Last Updated: 11-27-1994

Copyright 1994  Diane Ferrell, Leslie Basel.  All rights reserved.
You may use and copy this file as long as the contributors names
and this copyright remains intact.  Plagarism is naughty, even on
the Internet.

CHARTER

Rec.food.preserving is a newsgroup devoted to the discussion of 
recipes, equipment, and techniques of food preservation.  Current
food preservation techniques that rightly should be discussed in 
this forum include canning, freezing, dehydration, pickling, smoking,
salting, distilling, and potting.  Foodstuffs are defined as produce
(both fruits and vegetables), meat, fish, dairy products, culinary
and medicinal herbs.  Discussions should be limited to home-grown
or home-preserved foods.

[I have a refrigerator and live near 5 supermarkets.  Why bother
to preserve food?]

If you have a successful garden or orchard, have a hunting or
fishing license, or know friends and neighbors that do, you will 
eventually be presented with an abundance of "free" foodstuffs.

If you have ever walked into an upscale food store, you might have
noticed that dried foods, exotic jams, chutneys, marmalades, flavored
vinegars and oils, pickles, cheeses, cured and smoked meats, etc,
all are expensive preserved foods.  However, these items can be all
be readily duplicated at home, given the ingredients, expertise,
and time.

Commercially processed food can contain many ingredients that you
might want to avoid, anything from MSG, BHA, BHT, to salt, sugar,
or starchy thickeners.   By preserving food yourself, you can 
control your diet.  

TABLE OF CONTENTS

	  I.  Canning
	 II.  Freezing
	III.  Dehydration
	 IV.  Smoking
	  V.  Pickling
	 VI.  Curing with Salt, Sugar, or Lye
	VII.  Potting
	VIII. Distilling
	 IX.  Root Cellaring

--N.B.  This part of the FAQ is the most fluid.  If anybody is will-
ing to write sections, reorder this table of contents, take on
botulism and food poisoning, food preserving problems, please do.
This is just to get the ball rolling.--

I. CANNING

[What do I *really* need to know about canning?]

Basically, canning food is preserving food under a vacuum.  The
vacuum is created by wet heat, either by a boiling waterbath or
a pressure canner.  What you absolutely need to know is whether
your product is highly acidic (low pH) or not.  High acid foods
can be canned in a boiling waterbath; relatively low acid foods
need to be pressure canned.  You also need to know what your
altitude is, because the higher you are, the lower the boiling 
temperature of water.  Since you are creating an anerobic state,
you need to be concerned about C. botulinum toxin.

II. FREEZING

[What do I *really* need to know about freezing?]

Freezing is preserving food using low temperatures--generally
at temperatures around 0 F/-18 C.  Freezing generally inhibits both
microbial growth and protease/enzyme action in the food itself.
You need to decide whether or not to blanch or process food, how 
to wrap food to prevent freezer burn, what foods freeze well, and 
what to do when the power goes out. 

III. DEHYDRATION

[What do I *really* need to know about dehydrating food?]

Dehydrating food works on the principal that both microbes and 
enzymes in your food require free water to work.  (To a lesser
extent, this is how freezing works--the water is frozen instead
of evaporated off.).  Generally, you get rid of the water in food
by gentle, even heat (sun, oven, dehydrator) and air movement (wind,
open oven door, fan)--otherwise water just stays in the food or 
condenses on it.  You especially need to be cautious, though, about 
several types of mold that produce mycotoxins (e.g. aflatoxin) while 
growing on the surface of your dried food.

IV. SMOKING

[What do I *really* need to know about smoking food?]

Smoking food in order to preserve it is a bit different than 
smoking food on the barbeque.  Generally, the meat or fish to 
be smoked is salt-cured, which preserves the tissue throughout,
then is smoked either for flavor, or to preserve the surface
of the meat.  Other items can be smoked to preserve them and 
concentrate their flavors, e.g smoked hot peppers.  Smoking 
provides the flavor, but dehydration preserves the pepper.

V. PICKLING

[What do I *really* need to know about pickling?]

Pickling food encompasses several techniques, but usually involves 
equilibrating food in a salt solution, then one either adds an acid 
(vinegar), or allows the growth of free yeasts and bacteria to 
make lactic acid by fermentation.  If you are trying to pickle food 
using fermentation, you need to insure that the salt concentration 
in your crock will support the microbes you need, and you need to 
control and monitor their growth.  Since you are working with a salt
and acid, you also want to make sure that you pickle in a non-reactive 
container (e.g. porcelain, glass).

VI.  CURING WITH SALT, SUGAR, OR LYE

[What do I *really* need to know about curing foods, and what 
makes this different from pickling?]

Sometimes the difference between pickling and curing is semantic,
but generally curing is salting, etc, without the second acid
step.  Again, by adding the salt or sugar, you dehydrate the
food sufficiently to stop microbial growth.  Examples of salt
curing: salt pork, olives, anchovies, herring;  sugar curing: 
crystallized flowers, syrups, fruit "cheeses", Virginia ham.  Lye 
(NaOH) treated foods include olives, hominy, lutefisk--perhaps lye 
changes the food sufficiently so that no self-respecting spoiler 
would grow on it (grin inserted here for the humor impaired).

VII. POTTING

[What is potting anyway?]

Potting generally involves preserving food (meat, cheese) by 
smothering it in a layer of oil or fat, much like parafin wax is 
used to seal up a jar of jam or jelly.  This method of preserving 
food is not for amateurs, or for folks who have to watch their fat 
intake.

VIII. DISTILLING

[What is distilling anyway?]

Distilling, in the strictest sense, is eliminating water from a
water/ alcohol solution.  I'd like to put in here other similar
acts, such as preserving herb and fruit flavors in oils, vinegars,
alcohols, cordials, fruits preserved in alcohol, making vinegars 
>from  wines, etc.

IX. ROOT CELLARING

[What do I *really* need to know about root cellaring?]

Root cellaring is one of the simplest acts of food preservation.
Many vegetables, especially root crops can be preserved in a dry,
cool (just above freezing), dark place, such as root cellar.  In
some climates, one can even leave garden produce in place during
the winter.  What you really need to know are the precise conditions
needed for optimal storage, and know what cannot be stored next 
to what.  Also, your pile of produce needs to be carefully monitored.
Fruits and vegetables that ripen in the presence of ethylene can
quickly age all of your produce.  (The one rotten apple does what the
old adage says it does.)

[This FAQ does not tell me what I need to know!]

Please put the question to the group, rec.food.preserving.  Or...

BOOKS:

 Putting Food By (1991). Janet Greene, Ruth Hertzberg, Beatrice
Vaughan.  ISBN 0-452-26899-0.  If you only can afford one book on
this subject, this is the one to get.

 Stocking Up (1990).  Carol Hupping.  ISBN 0-671-69395.  This is
the book compiled by the Rodale Institute.  Check for copyright
dates, especially if you are curing meats.  Early editions have 
meat curing protocols and recipes, the latest edition does not.

 The Ball Blue Book: The Guide to Home Canning and Freezing (various).  
Ball Corporation.  Can order your copy using the coupon on the top
of your next case of Ball jars.

 Kerr Kitchen Book, Home Canning and Freezing Guide (various).  Kerr
Glass Manufacturing Corporation.   Can order your copy using the 
coupon on the top of your next case of Kerr Jars.

 Sunset Home Canning Guide (1993).  ISBN 0-376-02433.

 Making and Using Dried Foods (1994).  Phyllis Hobson.  ISBN
0-88266-615-0.

 Root Cellaring (1994).  Mike and Nancy Bubel.  ISBN 0-88266-703-3.

 Canning (   ).  Sue and Bill Deeming.  ISBN

 Canning and Preserving Without Sugar (1993).  Norma M. MacRae.
ISBN 1-56440-163-4.

 Keeping the Harvest (1990).  Nancy Chioffi and Gretchen Mead.
ISBN 0-88266-650-9.

 Preserving Today (1992).  Jeanne Lesem.  ISBN 0-364-58653-0.

 Clearly Delicious (1994).  Elizabeth Lambert-Ortiz, Judy Ridgway.
ISBN 1-56458-513-1.

 The Fancy Pantry (1986).  Helen Witty.  ISBN 0-89480-094-9.

 Better Than Store Bought ().  Helen Witty, Elizabeth 
Schneider Colchie.  ISBN

 The Art of Accompaniment (1988).  Jeffree Sapp-Brooks. ISBN
0-86547-346-3.

 The Glass Pantry: Preserving Seasonal Flavors (1994).  Georgeanne
Brenner.  ISBN 0-8118-0393-7.

 Herbal Vinegar (1994).  Maggie Oster.  ISBN 0-88266-843-9.

 Summer in a Jar: Making Pickles, Jams, and More (   ).  Andrea
Chessman.  ISBN

 Farm Journal's Homemade Pickles and Relishes (1976).  Betsy 
McCracken.  Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 76-14048.

 Feast of the Olive (1993).  Maggie Beth-Klein.  ISBN 0-8118-0523-9.         
Several olive curing techniques listed here.

 Fruits of the Desert (1986).  Sandal English.  ISBN 0-9607-758-0-3.
Preserving fairly exotic fruits, such as kumquats, loquats, fresh
figs, cactus fruits, olives.

--N.B. Many standard cookbooks, such as Joy of Cooking, will give
you information on preserving food and recipes.  Check for the
most recent edition and the copyright dates.  Also, the Foxfire
series has some information on food preserving techniques.--

PAMPHETS:

 Consumer Information Center, Department EE, Pueblo CO 81009.  Ask
for the Consumer Mailing List Catalog.  Can order those nifty USDA
pamphets from this catalog.

 Heinz Successful Pickling Guide, P.O. Box 57, Pittsburgh PA 15230.
(That PO Box is easy to remember, eh?)

 Check your extension service office for pamphets, which can usually
be bought for a dollar or so.  Especially important for high altitude
canning, getting recipes specific for locale, even information
on U-Pick sites and local farmers' markets.

MAGAZINES:

 The Herb Companion
 Mother Earth News
 Organic Gardening
 Better Homes and Gardens
 Sunset

PHONE:   (non-modem)

 Kerr Hot Line   1-800-654-6249
 Ball Hot Line   1-800-240-3340
 Mrs. Wages      1-800-647-8170
 your extension service--check your local university directory, 
especially if its a Land Grant College; look under Government
Services, under Dept. of Agriculture.
 Master Preservers--similar to Master Gardeners or Master Composters.

ELECTRONIC:

 ftp ftp.ucdavis.edu    pub/extension/4h-youth   fp001.zip-fp008.zip
Files are compressed, written in Word Perfect 5.1 or Post Script
format.  Files are eight lessons in food preservation.

 gopher cesgopher.ag.uiuc.edu  Goto Food-and-Nutrition, then Food
Preservation.  30 files here, ranging from pressure canning to
pawpaws.

 telnet to sunSITE.unc.edu  cd pub/academic.  Check out the rec.
gardens herb.faq, which contains advice on preserving herbs.  

 Email [email-masked]  write a one
line message containing the command SUBSCRIBE to this listserve
address.  This is the chile heads mailing list, which has info
on preserving chile peppers.

 http://me-www.jrc.it/htbin/cook?tag=sections/canning-preserving
This is a www site with a few (very few) preserving recipes mostly
taken from rec.food.recipes.

Please direct questions, comments, criticisms, and contributions to:
 [email-masked]
 [email-masked]

One last quote:

"And here, without secrecy anywhere or of any kind, are some recipes
which seem to have outlived the nineteenth century, our Golden Age
of Pickling.  Like most family jewels, they are called Sarah's This
and Maggie's That, and in one way or another all of these people were
witches, so I have carefully tested their brews, and often, to prove
them honest... There are shades of exotic and ethnic backgrounds in
them, but basically they are still living proofs of the passionate
romance between Midwestern housewives and the Mason jar, which filled
shelves with gleaming beautiful vessels of cooked fruits and vegetables,
all dirt cheap in season and as rare as toad gems in the long winters
fed on potatoes, cabbages, and parsnips..."
                       --MFK Fisher, With Bold Knife and Fork (1968)