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According to L.A. Weekly, home canning and pickling is one of the top 10 food trends for 2011. It’s #3, between potted meats (#2) and whoopie pies (#4). (You can see the whole list here. The #1 trend is savory pies.) Sales of canning jars are up, as is media focus on the topic. I investigated the canning trend a little bit, finding this article at Slate, which describes the home canning trend as cute, modish, and overwrought in a largely negative piece that emphasizes the investment of time, money, and energy into a fad not much worthy of reviving. They pretty much boil it down to something people do to impress their friends or out of some misguided zeal. The Slate article concludes: “There’s nothing blameworthy about the pickling and preserving fervor, but let’s be honest: It’s not about producing serious food for the future, and it’s not about shaking a fist at industrial food. (After all, it’s not Claussen and Heinz that eco-conscious consumers worry about so much as suppliers of meat, milk, and produce.) Rather, it’s about making and sharing delicious, idiosyncratic things that are also, not insignificantly, very pretty.”
I don’t think these people understand us!
While the Food Channel can sometimes be the home of the modish and overwrought, they know enough to find the right people to decipher the home canning trend of today. You can read their interview with Laura Devine of Jarden (Ball) here. She explains the home canning trend this way: “People now are wanting to take produce back into their own hands and control it themselves. They’re saying, ‘I know it’s safe. I can trust this food, because I did it myself.’ Another reason, of course, is simply taste. People love that fresh flavor. And with home canning or freezing, again, they’re in control. If they want to add fresh herbs or spices—things like garlic—they can do it. If they want less sodium in their canned tomatoes, or less sugar in their canned or frozen fruit, they can do that.” And: “Folks really like the idea of capturing the flavor of fresh produce. Another reason, I think, is the sense of accomplishment you feel when you’ve done it. It becomes sort of like a hobby for many people. And people like giving home-canned foods as gifts. There’s something special about giving a gift of something homemade.”
These are the people who understand us! And speaking of Ball….
It’s a Ball Blue Book Project day! Today’s Ball Blue Book is sponsored by Billie at No Crack Cream–check out her great stuff here.
For a chance to win: Leave a comment on this post and let me know you want it. You can just put (BBB) at the end of your comment or otherwise note that you want to be in the draw. One winner will be drawn by random comment number to receive a Ball Blue Book. Eligible entry cut-off is midnight Eastern (U.S.) time tonight (March 8). This post will be updated with the winner by 9 a.m. Eastern (U.S.) time tomorrow (March 9). Return to this post to claim your book if your name is drawn (or check the BBB Winners List).
Find out more about the Ball Blue Book Project and become a sponsor.
UPDATE 03/09/11: The winning comment number, drawn by random.org, is #95, joanne. Email me at CITRgiveaways(at)yahoo.com with your full name and address for shipping!
THIS GIVEAWAY IS CLOSED TO ENTRY.
Posted by Suzanne McMinn on March 8, 2011
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BBB please!
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I am going to IN to help my sweet girl when she has her 6th baby. I have so much to talk about to those children! Maybe they can help me figure out how to handle their large, grumpiesh uncle teens . and they love cookery books! We all do! I can hardly wait to show them leaping sheepies, and door opening cats…Thank you for living my dream, suzanne! We’ll join you someday.
laur
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Mary Ellen
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BBB, please
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I feel the need to do it, not to impress friends (who won’t be impressed) but like the later article stated, to take further control of the food my family consumes! But also reading so much about it on this site has removed some of the fear I had associated with what had to be a daunting task. I remember my mother sweating in out kitchen canning for hours and hours and hours. Didn’t seem fun. Now, because of you all, I think it will be. I’m ready for the task!
BBB please!
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BBB, pretty please.
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I’m with them on the savory pies thing! We make a few Shepherds pies at a time and freeze them. Very easy dinner to thaw one out and pop it in the oven. Of course, we do like to can also and could use a BBB at our farm.
Many best- Sherry
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My two grown sons pickle and can…I taught them how and they grow
some of their own produce…BBB would be nice…
Just found a really old BBB in my Moms estate she was 93 when she passed this year and she made some jelly last year…she learned to can from her Mom. They have been cute and modish for several hundred years..I wish to be canning that long!
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BBB please!
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BBB please
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sam
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Not…
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BBB for me too, please! :-)
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Thanks for all you post.
Also, please list me in the drawing for the BBB.
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I already have a BBB, so please don’t enter me in the drawing.
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I love your site!!!
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I would love to learn to can – BBB please!
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If the economy collapses and there is no more food, everyone has to meet at Suzanne’s. We know she is hoarding. heh heh
I want the book. I would like to start a fad at my house.
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They can go buy some premixed blueberry kefir, in those cute little plastic bottles, for 3.84+ a serving….I think we are the s benefiting. So I dont care what they call what I do!
PS You can buy kefir grains online…and they GROW! haven’t killed mine yet and my husband swears it is making his digestive system very very happy!
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Thanks.
MN Mona
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So yes, I want the BBB.
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I got a stock pot/canner for christmas and I’m asking for a pressure cooker for my birthday comming up in April! I love providing my family with good food, and canning my own fruits and veggies would be a dream come true! Not only because it is delicious but it is but it is safe! The safty of my family is my number one priority.
So with the guidence of my mother in law and this book, I can’t even begin to think about the canning that could go on in my kitchen. My mouth is watering!
BBB, please please please!!!
Thank you for the chance to win!!!
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Now if someone went out, spent top price ($12-$14 per dozen) for a box of jars, made one batch of strawberry jam from store bought, imported berries in mid winter and gave it all away to people who then threw away the jars, then I would say yes, the efforts did not make a big dent in their life. But most canners do so much more.
Oh…. and if that is all you did last year, please don’t think I am knocking your efforts. We all start somewhere
I have several BBB’s in my house including hte most recent, so please give the book to someone else… I just had to comment.
Have a great day all,
(who has already put up 23 pints of soup stock in 2011)
Ruth in NH
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Denny
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Some of my favorite childhood memories are helping my mom chop things up for canning!
I can all my tomatoes and am learning to can a few other things. I know if I had the time I’d can everything!
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I’ve never watched the Food Channel – never even heard of it. But I am hopelessly addicted to the Food Network. Chopped, The Worst Cook in America, Secrets of a Restaurant Chef, etc…hopelessly hooked.
I’m gonna have to find the Food Channel and check it out as well!
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I’d love a copy of the book, if you ship internationally. Otherwise *shrug* someone else gets lucky!
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Thanks!!
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BBB please!
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BBB, please.
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Yes, please!
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I can’t even imagine what it would be like in the winter if there weren’t jars of peas, green beans, tomatoes, pickles, jams and jellies to help us through.
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We’re hoarders too… excpet, wait – we’re already past the half-way point on the applesauce. Obviously, we didn’t hoard enough apples. But more apples would mean we were even more overwrought…
We’re terribly mod-ish around here too. So much so that we put up 45 pounds of pickles. We ran out three weeks ago. Our friends that helped us this year (so that they could learn how to pickle) only put up 10 pounds apiece, and they ran out by Thanksgiving. Plans are in process for 25 pickling cucumber plants this year, with the hopes of at least 150 pounds of cucumbers.
Yes, we’re horribly outdated. We joined friends this year and pressed two bins of apples for cider (that’s a full ton of apples)… the problem is, every party and gathering and Bible study requests we bring hot or cold cider. Or both. Those old-fashioned, untrendy drinks just keep disappearing when we bring them! Obviously, we’ve missed the boat on those trendy fake lemonade mixes… except, wait – those only get drunk after the cider’s gone.
My husband claims that I spread more of my insanity every year, as evidenced by the increased numbers at our place during canning season. I protest that I don’t corrupt anyone! I just feed them…
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THIS GIVEAWAY IS CLOSED TO ENTRY.
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Please! (BBB)
(silent appeal to the Canvolution fairies)
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