Advice On Preserving Fruit

by amhall

posted on 06/08/2009

We all know that we should be eating more fruits and vegetables, preferably organic and local. However, unless you're content to subsist on apples, oranges, kale and whatever the weird, patchouli-scented hippy at the bulk food store turns up with (Has anyone ever really wanted to eat a Jerusalem artichoke?), this can be an extremely expensive and boring proposition. One great way to vary your diet, save money, and have great fun is preserving and canning fruits and vegetables.

Thinking back on your grandmother's cupboards and country fairs of yore, you might remember dusty old jars of questionable provenance, displayed like so many specimens from a mad scientist's laboratory. "Who would want to eat that?" you ponder. You would gladly pay half a month's salary to eat fresh fruits and vegetables rather than mushy peaches preserved in a sugary sauce. You can still buy those at the dented can store for a nickel afterall. However, just as Chips-Ahoy scarcely resemble fresh, homemade chocolate-chip cookies, your own preserves will make the sugary store-bought version pale in comparison.

The first step is, of course, to find some fresh, seasonal fruit. Before you head over to the local megamart, you should check out pick-your-own farms in your area (www.pickyourown.org). The fruit is usually cheaper, often organic, and tastier than something picked hundreds of miles away, likely weeks before it is actually ripe, and shipped in an air-conditioned truck to you. You can make a day of it and drive out to the country with some friends to pick the fruit and have a picnic. Almost of any kind of fruit will do, but look for unblemished fruit that is not quite ripe. Make sure you buy enough to make your trip out there worth it. Ten pounds is probably a good amount, so you can eat some fresh and preserve several pints worth. Pick up some pectin, canning jars (with a sealing lid and ring), and some unfiltered apple juice at the general store while you're there.

Now that you have spent your time in the country and patted yourself on the back for supporting local agriculture, you need prepare the fruit for cooking and preserving. This is the part where you may regret your youthful ambition and wonder if eating corn-syrup-laden, technicolor preserves from a multinational corporation is really so bad. With cherries, you must pit them, all of them. There is not really a more efficient way to do this, although I have heard that you can put them in a bag and smash them with a rolling pin, a process which will pop the pits out. Then, of course, you must also pick those pits out by hand. With other fruits, peaches, nectarines, apricots, you should probably peel them. There's no trick to this but buying a good peeler and looking forward to washing your hands. Strawberries, blueberries, and blackberries are much simpler, only requiring a rough smashing.

Once you have about three pounds of prepared, smushed fruit, mix it with one pack of dry "no-sugar" pectin, a tablespoon or two of lemon juice, and a cup of apple juice in large, nonreactive (ie. stainless steel) pot. Let the mixture sit for a few minutes while you wash up and prepare the jars. You can wash them thoroughly in a dishwasher, but the quickest way to ensure they are free of any pesky bacteria to spoil your fruit is to boil them for at least five minutes in a large pot, filled part of the way with extremely hot way. Remove them from the pot with tongs and place them on a clean, dry towel to await your preserves.

Set the pot over high heat, stirring occasionally, and wait for it to come to a very rapid boil. Depending on how sweet your fruit is and your preferences, you could add some sugar at this point and cook for another five minutes. You could also skim off the foam, but this is largely an aesthetic step. It won't make your fruit spoil any faster if you don't skim it. At this point, you might also want to take a teaspoon of the jam and pour it on a cold surface to test the texture and sweetness. If it does not gel or is not sweet enough, you should quickly add some more pectin or sugar. I emphasize quickly because the longer you cook the pectin now, the runnier your jam will become.

As you remove your preserves from the heat, drop the lids into the pot of boiling water in which your sterilized the jars. The seals need to soften a bit before you put them on. Go ahead and fill your jars with your preserves, leaving about a quarter of an inch at the top. Clean the rims, remove the lids from the hot water, and place them on top. To help them seal, screw the rings on as tightly as you can, pressing the lid down at the center. Place the jars into the same hot water bath. The water should mostly cover the jars, so you might need to refill the pot if the water has evaporated. Put the cover onto the pot and boil the jars for at least five minutes. The higher the altitude where you are the longer that you will need to process the jars. Remove them to a cool dry place to let them seal. You must wait twenty-four hours before futzing with the jars again or they will not seal properly and all your hard work at preserving will be for naught. After twenty-four hours, check the seals by pressing down on the center of each jar. They should not move or pop. If they do, the jar has not sealed properly and you should put that jar in the refrigerator to eat first, a foretaste of the delectable, locally-grown, and minimally-processed produce that you can enjoy on toast, yogurt, or by themselves for months to come!

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jtrombetti says:

(164d 9h 46min ago)