CANNING WHEN YOU CAN’T GET SUGAR 
EFFIE M. ROBINSON 
The Belief That Sugar Is Essential to the Preservation of Fruit Has No Sounder 
Basis Than the Fact That Fruit Itself Is Sweet and Is Used Commonly as a Sweet 
VV^H ETHER you are canning with or without sugar it is 
VV'/x first and all-important to make up your mind that on 
can ™ n 8 days you are “not at home’’! Muffle the 
llU&'XT telephone and devote yourself to the work on hand to 
the exclusion of everything else! Then proceed to pick the 
fruit over carefully. Use only perfect fruit for canning. 
Always can, too, just as soon after fruit is gathered as possible. 
Prepare in any way that is necessary, such as hulling straw- 
berries, stoning plums, peel- 
ing and cutting or slicing 
large fruit; and then put 
aside in a cool place while 
all other preparations are 
going on. 
The one-period cold-pack 
method is recommended. 
1 n this, the article is packed, 
uncooked, into jars and then 
sterilized in a hot -water 
bath. Put this hot-water 
bath on the stove to heat 
up with its rack to hold the 
jars in place. If you have 
no regular water-bath can- 
ner use the family wash- 
boiler. Fill with sufficient 
warm water to come an inch 
above the tops of the jars 
when these are in. 
Next examine the jars, 
discard imperfect ones, and 
sterilize those to be used by 
putting them and their tops 
intoa large preserving kettle 
filled with warm water. 
Bring gently to the boil, 
then keep them just at boil- 
ing point till ready to use. 
Always use this year’s new 
rubbers for sealing. Even 
if you have some unused 
from last year it is safer 
not to use them for they 
deteriorate rapidly. Keep the rubbers in water with a pinch 
of baking soda in it till required for use. 
Have a large pan of boiling water ready for the blanching 
process, a kettle of boiling water for filling the jars after the 
fruit is in them, and a large pan of cold water for the cold dip. 
(And if you intend using a syrup, prepare it now. Directions 
are given further on.) 
First blanch the fruit — that is, plunge it into boiling water 
for one minute, using a wire basket Qr a cheesecloth sack 
to hold it. (Vegetables require from five to fifteen minutes but 
only the hard fruits require more than one minute. Give the 
hard fruits three minutes.) 
Lift from the blanching - pan into the cold dip; which 
means plunge directly into cold water — in again, out again 
quickly and spread out at once to dry. Prepare only enough 
fruit at one time to fill the number of jars that will fill the 
canner. 
Now till the hot, clean jars with the fruit, gently pressing 
316 
it down with a wooden spoon so as to get as much in as possible 
without crushing; then fill the jars to the brim with boiling water 
(or boiling syrup), place the wet rubbers and tops on them and 
close them. Do not seal fully, however, as you must leave 
room for steam to escape while they are in the canner. If you 
have screw-top jars, use your thumb and little finger to screw 
the top on; if bail-top jars, put the upper bail in position over 
the glass top but leave the bottom bail loose. 
Place the jars in the 
water- bath and keep boil- 
ing steadily all the time, 
counting the time of ac- 
tual sterilization as be- 
ginning when the water 
has been boiling for two 
minutes. Sterilize small 
soft fruits thirty minutes, 
the harder fruits one hour; 
and keep a kettle of water 
boiling on the side of the 
stove from which to renew 
the water-bath, if it boils 
away, without stopping the 
boiling. 
An alarm clock set to the 
time when sterilization will 
be finished is a very wise 
provision for exactness. 
When it goes off, take the 
jars out, placing them on 
cloths to prevent them from 
breaking, and immediately 
seal tightly without open- 
ing, holding with cloths of 
course to prevent burning 
the hands. The great 
secret of success in this 
one-period cold-pack 
method is to insure against 
the slightest exposure of 
the contents to the air after 
the jars have once been 
filled and covered. 
Turn them upside down after sealing and let stand till 
morning to test for leaks. Any leaky jar will have to be 
emptied and the contents sterilized all over again, so get it 
right the first time! When quite cold wrap in paper and store 
in a cool place. 
As to the use of sugar, it is absolutely unnecessary though it 
has been so long the practice to use it that the idea of preserving 
without it is hard to accept. Yet complete sterilization does 
the trick just as well. Vegetables have always been canned 
without sugar, and it is only because fruits are used as a sweet 
and so many of them are sugary in themselves that we have 
come to think they require sugar to make them “keep.” Plain 
boiling water is all they need in the jars; but if you prefer to 
sweeten them take the same quantity of honey or corn syrup 
as of water (for a thin syrup), or use two parts of honey or corn 
syrup to one part of water for a heavy syrup. Boil for ten 
minutes and then pour boiling over the fruit when it is packed 
into the jars, instead of the boiling water. 
DO AS MUCH OF THE WORK AS YOU CAN OUTDOORS 
Preparation of the fruits and the weighing and measuring should be done where 
it is airy and cool, while the wait during sterilization is an opportunity for rest 
