Inspiring Canning Stories

CHEFTALK

Inspiring canning stories

Retort, canning, jarring, bottling, name it as you like, we should add pouching to the list of words for retort don’t you think so.

Retort experiences are quite inspiring when you listen to what people have to say about their canning adventures. Many of them are already canning since childhood, you know that ‘my grandmothers recipe thing’ that you find when people talk about cooking their favorite dish, I found the same experiences when I was looking for retort tales.

From here

                              

To here

                            

Many of them were really very inspiring and I like to share a few of them. If you are inspired after this read, share your story here and inspire others to eat healthy homemade food made with their own retort produce.


Inspirational

In abundance 

I found this story of a lady who says that she has been canning for 45 years now and started when she was with her, now husband, in college, the budget was tight and behind their house was a yard with apple trees, she gathered the apples and made apple sauce and apple butter from it. Canning is work she says, but unlike house work it is very rewarding to have rows of jewels on the shelf that you can pull out in winter and have the taste of summer.

Her favorite canning memory was that her daughter once called her in the middle of the night and asked how to can peaches; because her husband loved the mother’s canned peaches to bits. She gave her the recipe and her daughter has been canning ever since.  

Juicy and Succulent

Another lady said that she loved canning tomatoes, crushed and stewed with onions and peppers. She makes salsa’s, pizza sauce, taco sauce, pickled jalapenos, dill and sweet pickles, soups and apple pie filling from their own green house and garden. She grows a lot of vegetables on their 1 acre land and says ‘Yes it’s a lot of work but I have so much fun doing it’.

Then I loved this comment, ‘A trip to the local farmers market is better than taking a vacation for me,’ working with the herbs and vegetables I bring home with me extends the sensory experience I brought with me from the market.   

‘I can fresh produce and control what ingredients go into my family’s food and that makes me feel good. The reason that I retort, is the sense of accomplishment I feel when I watch my shelves fill up with food that is not only safe and healthy but which is as nourishing to my senses as it is to my body’.  How true

One man said, ‘the amount of money we have saved by canning produce from our garden is hard to say, but it is a considerable sum for sure. It involves hard work but an enormous sense of pride and an incredible feeling of accomplishment and living.

I did not want to waste to excess produce from my garden and started canning for that reason, I can tell you now that there is nothing than to open a packet of your own produced retort in the middle of winter and smell your garden, said another contributor. 

Yes it may be harder work then going to the grocery store but knowing what is in my own produced retort, or maybe more importantly, what is not in it, justifies all the effort.

Homemade

He added that he makes tomato sauce, chili sauce and his own sausages that make to best hot dogs imaginable.

The last one: ‘Best thing is that we do it together, we clean, cut, cook, pack and process everything together, spending precious time together and enjoying every minute of it.

This couple’s favorite product were peanuts, wash them very well, boil for 5 minutes with salt and retort for 50 minutes under 11 LBS pressure.           Worth a try I would say.

   

My immediate assessment after reading some retort stories is the joy and feeling of accomplishment you get from making your own, if you do not have a garden, go to the local farmers market for more inspiration.

I found that some people manage to save up to $800.00 per year which is the icing on the cake.

Pouch retort is pretty cheap, clean, saves storage space and rewarding, go for it!!

www.vacupack.com  for USA and www.vacupack.ca for Canada 

By: Marinus Hoogendoorn