Online mag Jezebel published a first-person essay on canning today, prompting a very long and hugely entertaining comments thread. It's hard to say where readers are coming down on canning, pro or con, after the author's unequivocal stance of anti-.
Go, read, enjoy. Then come back and share your thoughts. The most thrilling aspect of the discussion to me is that so many people had experiences to relate - either they were intimately involved in a canning project or have known and loved others who were. And, truthfully, although the stories of canning-gone-wrong made me cringe a bit (I feel a certain amount of pressure to relate only success stories but goodness knows I hear of/experience my share of failures) they're mostly pretty funny. I wonder if I'd ever gone through with the ill-conceived Orangina project if I'd make someone laugh as hard as I have reading some of these. It's almost worth trying again to find out.
Not Tonight Dear
All weekend I mulled a new post, a kind of What I Did Over Summer Vacation, wherein I planned to detail this year's pickled mushrooms (splendid), the sweet cherries (ten pints of pure sunshine) and perhaps do a little mourning over my tomatoes, newly beset by blight as they are.*
Instead I am indulging in a fit of crankiness brought on by a short but spectacular storm that has left us with sub-optimal media and internet conditions and which came on the heals of a plumbing challenge (read: leak from upstairs into the downstairs and all over my desk) which left the one totally reliable computer with a keyboard that no longer recognizes commas, the numbers 1, 4, and 7 or the letter K. Tomatoes aren't the only things blighted around here.
So. Will return.
* The blight situation brings into stark relief a point I've made a time or two about canning's value proposition. If I have to purchase tomatoes for preserving when commercial options are available for around a dollar a can, what should I consider to be a break even? Or should I even care when by purchasing I've supported a local farmer, giving her the means by which to combat the blight and make our 'hood safe for nightshades once again? But then if I add in the energy costs and lids and time and...whatever. I'll probably buy at least some tomatoes to make the less plain items - your salsas, your roasted veggie sauces, and so on - and buy my regular old diced specimens (the price of which seems likely to be somewhat more than a dollar darn tootin' soon) at the grocery. With the decision at hand for many of us, I'll ask you to be honest about the costs and rewards...and not to forget to factor in your own enjoyment. Surely it is worth something, yes?
Instead I am indulging in a fit of crankiness brought on by a short but spectacular storm that has left us with sub-optimal media and internet conditions and which came on the heals of a plumbing challenge (read: leak from upstairs into the downstairs and all over my desk) which left the one totally reliable computer with a keyboard that no longer recognizes commas, the numbers 1, 4, and 7 or the letter K. Tomatoes aren't the only things blighted around here.
So. Will return.
* The blight situation brings into stark relief a point I've made a time or two about canning's value proposition. If I have to purchase tomatoes for preserving when commercial options are available for around a dollar a can, what should I consider to be a break even? Or should I even care when by purchasing I've supported a local farmer, giving her the means by which to combat the blight and make our 'hood safe for nightshades once again? But then if I add in the energy costs and lids and time and...whatever. I'll probably buy at least some tomatoes to make the less plain items - your salsas, your roasted veggie sauces, and so on - and buy my regular old diced specimens (the price of which seems likely to be somewhat more than a dollar darn tootin' soon) at the grocery. With the decision at hand for many of us, I'll ask you to be honest about the costs and rewards...and not to forget to factor in your own enjoyment. Surely it is worth something, yes?
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