412 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



D 



C 



OUR FOOD PAGE 



Stancy Puerden 



Ur 



^ID you send 

 for that 

 canning 

 bulletin, No. 839, 

 about which I 

 told you in the 

 last issue? You 

 really cannot af- 

 ford to be with- 

 out it. 



Many women have the idea that 

 vegetable canning is difficult and 

 entails a great deal of hard work. 

 I always thought so myself, espe- 

 cially when it was supposed to be 

 necessary to use the intermittent 

 method of sterilization. But last 

 year I started early in the summer 

 canning our garden surplus, a few 

 cans at a time, and by winter my storeroom 

 with its rows of attractive-looking canned 

 vegetables in the clear glass cans was the 

 pride of my heart. And I learned to really 

 enjoy canning, work which I had always dis- 

 liked heartily before. 



In the first place, don 't attempt too much 

 canning at one time. I started out to use a 

 washboiler with a wooden rack in the bot- 

 tom holding a dozen cans. By the time 

 those were filled with cleaned, blanched, 

 and cold-dipped vege-tables and the boiler 

 was filled with water, I was at the point 

 where life did not look at all attractive. And 

 when the period of sterilization was over 

 and I had removed part of the cans, the wood- 

 en rack had aspirations to float on the sur- 

 face and upset several cans. Then there 

 was the task of emptying the large boiler. 

 After that washboiler experience I made a 

 trip to the hardware store to hunt a utensil 

 deep enough to hold four quart jars on a 

 false bottom, and found an enameled stock 

 pot which seemed to be just the thing. Oth- 

 er housekeepers have used new garbage cans 

 or large lard pails successfully. Whatever 

 you select should be deep enough to hold th" 

 cans submerged in water to the depth of 

 at least one inch and should have a close- 

 fitting cover. If you can procure the indi- 

 vidual wire can holders with handles, they 

 are most convenien,t. "With their aid it is 

 easy to can vegetables of different kinds 

 requiring different periods of sterilization. 

 A wire cake cooler will do very well, but 

 you need some sort of tongs for removing the 

 cans from the water bath. A wire frying 

 basket is convenient for blanching and cold 

 dipping the vegetables, but a square of clean 

 cheesecloth will do just as good work. 



That stock-pot canner of mine worked 

 overtime last summer. There was scarcely 

 a day that it was not on the burner of the 

 gas range with two to four jars of vegetables 

 in its depths. It was not much work to pre- 

 pare the vegetables for canning along with 

 the dinner vegetables. If you are fortunate 

 enough to have growing girls in your family, 

 let them do part of your canning. I know 

 a seventeen-year-old boy, who thought his 

 mother was not canning enough of a certain 

 favorite vegetable, and so while she was 



1 



iU 



.7ri>v, 1918 



taking her after- 

 noon nap and 

 bath he took her 

 canning time-ta- 

 ble, and when 

 she came down- 

 stairs there were 

 several cans of 

 vegetables p r o - 

 cessing in the 

 cooker. Those vegetables and others 

 which he later canned kept perfectly. 

 Here are some of the vegetables 

 which we found especially delicious 

 canned: string beans, peas, asparagus, 

 lima beans, young carrots, beet- 

 top greens, beets, both the small ones 

 canned whole and the larger ones 

 sliced. Canned corn is also very 

 good, but we prefer it dried. Beans and 

 corn may be canned together for succo- 

 tash. Two vegetables which the Puerden 

 family voted as not worth while canned 

 were cauliflower and summer squash. While 

 they did not spoil, the flavor of the cauli- 

 flower was unpleasantly strong and the sum- 

 mer squash was overcooked and insipid. 

 Eoot vegetables which keep well in a cool 

 cellar I made no attempt to can. My mother 

 worried about my spending so much time 

 canning. She had always heard vegetable 

 canning was very difficult. When she came 

 back from the South in the spring and we 

 invited her to dinner and served some of our 

 canned beets, she said, "These are the most 

 delicious canned vegetables I ever ate. I 

 would not know that they were not gathered 

 fresh from the garden. ' ' 



It would be easy to fill four pages with 

 canning talk and then leave much unsaid. 

 I want to emphasize just a few points and 

 then follow with a time-table for the hot- 

 water-bath method. 



Do not try to can anything but fresh, 

 clean vegetables. The sooner you get them 

 into the cans from the garden, the better. 

 Test every jar by partially filling with hot 

 water, sealing and inverting it. Blanch ac- 

 cording to the time given in the table and 

 dip immediately in and out of cold water, 

 the colder the better. Drain the cold-dipped 

 product, peel, if necessary, and pack careful- 

 ly in the clean jars, adding one teaspoon of 

 salt to every quart jar of vegetables. Fill 

 the jars of vegetables with boiling water, or 

 if fruit, with boiling syrup, adjust rubbers 

 and covers and partially seal. Sterilize the 

 product by immersing the jars in boiling 

 water to the depth of at least one inch for 

 the required length of time, counting from 

 the time the water begins to boil. Remove 

 the jars and complete the seal, inverting to 

 cool. The table which follows is for quart 

 jars. For altitudes 4,000 feet or more above 

 sea level, add 20 to 25 per cent more time 

 to this schedule. 



To can asparagus tips, blanch 5 minutes, 

 cold dip, and sterilize 2 hours; string beans, 

 okra and green or ripe peppers, blanch 5 

 minutes, cold dip, and sterilize 2 hours; car- 

 rots, beets and other roots or tubers, blanch 



