Five Ways to Preserve the Summer Harvest

Becky Striepe — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 03:30:13 +0000

It’s easy enough to eat local in spring and summer. Your garden is booming, CSA’s are in full effect, and farmers markets abound! So how can you make that bounty last into the winter, when fresh produce is a little more scarce? Here are some DIY solutions!

Preserving the Harvest

Stuart Stein — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 07:00:46 +0000

Back in the days before refrigeration, freeze-drying, vacuum-pack processing, aseptic packaging and even canning, savvy cooks invented ways to store food for future use. Salting, smoking, pickling, confiting, canning and drying were the most common methods of food preservation, especially on country farms. Root cellars for storing vegetables like potatoes, parsnips and carrots, and fruit like apples, were also common, and a necessity.

Today, in some sense, we’ve come full circle, seeking greater flavor, taste and control of what we eat and how it’s raised, grown, processed and preserved. Happily, we can take advantage of the freezer - it really works now. We’re rediscovering methods of preserving foods that were common over a century ago. Preserving the harvest dovetails perfectly with the concept of sustainable cooking, since it’s all about using what is produced or raised locally, what’s in season, and storing it so it can be used in the future.

Green Options » pickling

Five Ways to Preserve the Summer Harvest

Preserving the Harvest