Log In


Reset Password
Lifestyle

The art of canning

Fair entries are judged on technique, taste and appearance

When is a tomato not just a tomato?

When it’s a beauty queen.

“Ooh, look at that. That’s beautiful,” cooed La Plata County Fair judge Emily Wegener as she turned the jar of skinless Roma tomatoes packed perfectly in liquid beneath the light. “That’s the grand champion, for sure.”

And 144 contest categories later, indeed it was.

Judges started at 9 a.m. and coursed through categories from canned rhubarb to tomatillos, corn relish to canned beef, chokecherry syrup to dry red table wine – it’s all preserved and fermented food, after all – finishing nearly five hours later.

Judge Margery Pruitt eyed a jar of sliced peaches suspiciously.

“This one has raggedy edges,” she said, “it’s too ripe.”

Wegener DQ’ed another jar of seemingly impeccable peaches.

“Get rid of this one. It looks like crap.”

Yet a third was deemed too sticky to win, despite the uniformity of the packing and the brilliance of the color.

“If you’re going to take it to the fair, you should wash the jar,” Wegener said with obvious pique.

But wait, let’s back up. Canning is hot, time consuming and overall, a nuisance. I, for one, have never had the patience. And thanks to refrigeration and modern shipping, fruit and vegetables are available year round in the grocery store.

So, one might ask, why bother?

If you’ve ever eaten a home-canned juicy peach like my mama made, in the middle of winter, you’d know. If you ever made your family’s favorite spaghetti sauce in February with canned tomatoes fresh from the farmers market, you’d know. And if you ever sucked down a steaming bowl of corn chowder on a snowy day prepared with lovingly canned Olathe corn, you’d know, too.

Certainly Judy Dossey, her sister Carolyn Aspromonte and niece Gina Aspromonte know. The three are accomplished canners all, serving this early morning as fair superintendents in the canning category, welcoming judges, journalists and the like when the fair opened for the appraising of everything from cakes to chickens.

They cheerfully brought out jars of vegetables, relishes, pickles, jellies, juices and flavored vinegars. They wrapped white, red, blue and pink ribbons around the winners and moved speedily to set up the next items in the 179 sections of food preservation.

They also guided the judges on the criteria – color, clarity and container condition, among others – and reminded them of food safety regulations like the proper amount of cooking time and right amount of space to leave in each jar.

As Dossey brought out the first of the relishes, the judges lavished praise on a particularly stunning jar of cucumbers, diced to uniform perfection, bursting with bright green color and packed in a pristine jar.

“It’s pretty, but it could poison you,” said Gina Aspromonte, swooping in to remove the offending entry from contention, explaining that it wasn’t cooked long enough.

So make no mistake, it takes diligence and commitment to preserve the freshest ingredients of summer for a colder day. Even the simplest method, cold packing in a water bath, takes hours.

First, you choose your produce. It can’t be just any old thing. Different fruits and vegetables require different cooking techniques, whether that’s cold pack, hot pack, water bath or pressure cooking.

“Don’t even think of canning zucchini,” said Wendy Rice of the local extension office. “You won’t have anything left.”

That’s because the Italian vegetable is all water and can’t stand up to the cooking and heating process.

So, let’s try peaches. Now that mama has given up the ghost on canning her own, I’m determined to learn how. Pick the finest specimens, blanch them in hot water for 30 seconds or so, cool them in ice water and then, peel, slice and pack carefully into jars.

Next, make a hot syrup – sugar to taste – to pour over, filling almost to the top (the instructional website nchfp.uga.edu will tell you exactly how much for each product). Bring water to 140 degrees and carefully place the sealed jars, not touching, into the pot. The water should cover the jars by at least an inch.

Bring the water to a boil, put the lid on and wait 40 minutes. Turn off the heat, remove the lid and wait five minutes before gingerly transferring the jars to a towel or cooling rack (avoid the cold counter or the jars can burst.) Wait another 12-24 hours before labeling with contents, date and canning method.

See what I mean? I’m exhausted just thinking about it.

And beyond the actual canning, contestants have to figure in all the extras judges require – immaculate jars, new lids, matching rings, concise labels, to say nothing of delectable-looking produce.

Thus, the superiority of the red-gold Romas, packed in a cantilevered version to show each to the best advantage with not a single visible seed – clearly deserved the grand champion ribbon, the best of the best.

“You have to pack them just right. It’s really hard to do this,” Pruitt said as she marveled at the jar.

“It’s not going to happen at my house,” Wegener said. “My family will not know what good tomatoes look like.”

But Dossey’s will. Once a tomboy who preferred to play in the yard with her brothers rather than cook in the kitchen with her mother and sister, the retired Wal-Mart manager brought home the bacon, or this case, the pink ribbon for those flawless fruits.

“I was dumbfounded to win on tomatoes,” said Dossey, who entered in 34 canning categories and placed in many, sometimes sharing honors with her sister and niece, who won reserve grand champion for her pickled pears.

Me, I’m wondering if they have any jars of peaches to spare.

phasterok@durangoherald.com

Aug 13, 2016
La Plata County Fair offers something for everyone


Reader Comments