She recommended some resources to check out for further info: Kitchen Literacy by Ann Vileisis; Wild Fermentation by Sandor Katz; Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon; and Michael Pollan's recent New York Times Magazine article, or Omnivore's Dillemma.
The plum chutney recipe from our class can be found here, and the day's fermentation recipes can be found here.
Canning
Canning is a safe way to preserve large amounts of food for all-year consumption. It's downside is that in most cases, this method destroys the most nutrients in comparison with other methods. As far as safety goes, Chris taught us that most cases of botchulism come from industrial food, whereas there are on average about 25 cases of botchulism from home cooked food a year. The bigger safety issue, she said, was avoiding being clumsy and getting burned!
Water-bath canning is a great method for high-acid foods, such as fruit and tomatoes, and is also great for preserving condiments. Low-acid foods, like most vegetables, usually require pressure canning, though Chris strongly recommended that these foods taste much better frozen.
As far as how to do water-bath canning, I would recommend that anyone interested do some good research from the plethora of sources available on the internet and otherwise, or even better, learn from someone with experience or take a class.
Below, as an overview of the process, you can see what Chris prepared as a demonstration; plum chutney, made with with 3 lbs. of plums, 2 onions, a few cloves of garlic, raw cider vinegar, 1.5 cups sugar, 2/3 cup currants, mustard seed, "pickling seeds" and salt.
Up top, you can see Em and Chris preparing the chutney. Next, the chutney is ready to be canned after simmering for about 30 min. on the stove. The cans have been boiled and the lids warmed. The pot has enough water to cover the jars an inch or two. The jars are filled with a little "head space" below the lid, and the lids are closed not super tight, but "two-finger tight" - that is with only the force you can make with two fingers tightening it. If there are bubbles in the mix, you can eliminate those by running a butter-knife around the inside edge of the jar. The jars are then placed carefully in the canning bath for about 10 minutes, then they come out, are cooled, the rings are removed, the jars are washed if necessary, and the cans are ready to store for up to a year. This chutney was delicious!
Another thing to mention is that many people add pectin when creating jams and jellies to help with the process. Chris mentioned some ways to access the natural pectin available in fruit rather than having to buy pectin to add. The natural pectin can be accessed by sugaring your product, letting it sit, cooking it a little, and then letting it sit some more. Or, Chris sometimes makes jelly with green, unripe apples, which contains a lot of pectin and can be added to other products.
Dehydration or Drying
Dehydration or drying can be a bit more involved than canning, but preserves nutrients second best, after fermentation. Any produce can be dehydrated, though this is an especially good way to preserve herbs.
Drying can be done using a variety of methods, including simply hanging plants up in a dry space for a long while. What we learned about most was dehydration using a dehydrator home appliance. Dehydrators are generally relatively cheap to purchase and use relatively little energy. You can also create your own nearly free solar dehydrator, based on the design here, or check out my experience building a solar dehydrator here.
Fruits generally don't require much pre-treatment for dehydration, though you can choose to add absorbic acid or lemon juice in some cases, to prevent browning. Vegetables in general should be pretreated before drying by steam blanching them for about 3 or 4 minutes. This will kill enzymes on the exterior which may otherwise cause the vegetable to rot. Fruits and veggies are both ideally dehydrated at around 135 degrees Fahrenheit, while herbs only require about 110.
Here you can see Chris, Mike, Chloe and Em prepping some plums and laying them out on the dehydrator rack. Preparation is very straightforward; the idea is pretty much just to cut up the produce into relatively thin slices which will fit in the dehydrator and dry relatively quick. With fruits, the skin should be broken somehow, in this case it was by us cutting the fruit in half.
Dehydration times vary greatly depending upon what your dehydrating and how you prepare it. These plums will probably take at least a day, given their thickness. Herbs can sometimes take only a few hours, and other foods up to two days or so. When the food has had almost all of its moisture removed, it can then be stored for very long periods, usually at least a year. For extra-long, extra-safe storage, foods can also be pasteurized after dehydration, by placing them in a 175 degree oven after drying.
Freezing
Freezing foods is the 3rd most nutritious way to preserve them. It also may be the easiest way. The only real downside is that it requires, of course, a lot of freezer space and electricity to store.
To freeze foods, fruits require no pretreatment, but veggies, again, require a couple minutes of steam blanching as prep. After steam-blanching, they should be cooled immediately in cold water, then can be dried with a towel or air dried before freezing.
Freezing is very straightforward - just put the produce in a container and put it away! However, there are some tips to get the most out of this process. Chris recommended spreading food on baking sheets, freezing it for a few hours and then putting it in bags. That way each piece of food will be much less likely to stick to the other pieces in one big clump. Another tip is to suck the air out of your freezer bag, either with a straw or just with your mouth.
Lacto-fermentation
This is a great method for preserving food because unlike other methods, nutritional value is added to a product through this method. Fermentation allows new nutrients to be created and released. The downside is that it requires some extra special knowledge and attention to tend to it and keep it.
Lacto-fermentation preserves food because there exist little bacteria that consume lactose and sugar in food, and therefore create lactic acid which prevents spoiling bacteria from growing. Lactose exists in most foods, however you can add whey to your ferments to increase the amount of lactose and therefore increase the likelihood of success. You can procure whey as a by-product of making cheese, or by scooping the liquid out of the top of a settled tub of yogurt.
Chris showed us how to make sauerkraut as an example. This is primarily with cabbage, a good vegetable to ferment because it contains a lot of lactobacilli.
Above you can see that after Chris chopped up the cabbage, Em and I, as well as others, crushed the cabbage really well. Doing this draws out the water in the cabbage. It's then loaded in the jar, and if all the plant material is not submerged, you should add more filtered water to do so, making sure all the while to leave some head space below the top of the jar. In this case, Chris also added celery and caraway seeds (seeds have enzymes that prevent spoilage), some ginger and whey. She also recommended adding burdock, apples, carrots, juniper berries or more spices. As extra protection against mold, you can also add a whole leaf of cabbage on top. The jar can then be covered, but not in a way that's airtight, and it sits at room temperature for 3 to 4 days and is then closed with a lid and put in the fridge for at least a month. If any mold appears, it can be merely skimmed off the top - the food is safe because mold cannot grow below the surface of water. If there is a non-mold related problem with your ferment, you will likely be able to tell by any unusual smell beyond the normal slight-funkiness of all ferments, or perhaps from an unusual appearance. Trust your senses - in any case, unlike canning, there is pretty much 0% chance of serious problems resulting from bad ferments.
The sauerkraut process described can pretty much be used to ferment anything. As another example, Chris showed us pickles. During this example, she mentioned that it's a good idea to add tannic acid to ferments to help keep things crisp. For example, you can access this by adding a leaf from horseradish, grape or oak. Another tip - when creating a brine for your ferment, you should dissolve salt in water by heating it up rather than just mixing the salt into cold water. Pickles require at least 6 weeks in the fridge to ferment.
Below you can see Chris prepping some carrots and beets (notice how these are mashed down below teh water level in the jar), and then the finished products from the day, including salsa.
-Nick
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