EXTENSION COURSE IN VEGETABLE FOODS. 63 



LESSON XIII. PRESERVING AND CANNING VEGETABLES. 



The home canning of fruits and vegetables is a matter of more 

 importance to those who grow such products than to those who 

 must buy them in any case. The cost of labor and fuel, added to the 

 cost of the raw material, makes it wiser for many to buy the canned 

 article. But there is no question that the surplus products of the 

 home garden should be preserved in some form for future use. A 

 number of the publications of the United States Department of 

 Agriculture treat different phases of this subject fully and can be 

 used as supplemental textbooks for lessons. (See especially Eef. 

 Nos. 1, 4, 5, 6.) 



The essential points in all canning are few — absolute cleanliness, 

 good sterilization, and suitable containers — which mean the destruc- 

 tion and exclusion of molds, bacteria, and spores. 



Poisonous or doubtful preservatives never should be used. The 

 housekeeper should limit herself to the use of the approved household 

 preservatives, such as spice, vinegar, salt, wood, and smoke. The 

 use of sugar, salt, vinegar, and spices as flavorings has gone on so 

 long that it is frequently forgotten that such use is very often sec- 

 ondary to their preservative effect. 



A practical point worth remembering in canning and preserving 

 is that, roughly speaking, 1 quart of some vegetables, for instance, 

 spinach well packed down, onions, and cranberries, will weigh prac- 

 tically a pound, while with others, such as apples, cucumbers, and 

 peas, the weight of a quart would be more nearly 2 pounds. When 

 canning vegetables or preparing them for the table it is well to re- 

 member that on an average a quart of vegetables, as purchased, will 

 be required to fill a pint jar or dish; the shrinkage being due to 

 loose measure, the removal of skin, and other inedible portions, and 

 condensation in cooking. 



PRESERVING WITH SUGAR. 



The earliest method of preserving fruit aside from drying appears 

 to have been to coat it with honey and allow it to dry somewhat. 

 From that may have been derived the plan of packing in jars and 

 filling the spaces with strained honey. This might have been the 

 result of observation of the way in which flowers, etc., accidentally 

 coated with honey retained their original freshness. In any case it 

 was unconscious application of the fact that bacteria and molds do 

 not grow readily in the presence of concentrated sugar solutions. 



Preserving with sugar is, of course, more important for fruits 

 than for vegetables, but is worth consideration here, partly because 

 it shows an important principle in the general science of food 



