Preservation Supplement to LA Times Food Section 3/11/10

Last week's LA Times Food Section had tons of food preservation related content (Preservation Supplement to LA Times Food Section 3/4/11).

This week, not so much.

There was one significant article (didn't make the front of the section for some reason) that dealt with sustainability in restaurants. I actually blogged about it yesterday, so I'll just copy what I wrote then:

The LA Times has a nice article on how local restaurants are trying to be more green and sustainable (Serving Up Sustainability). There are a lot of good ideas that I hope other restaurants will take up, but one that isn't mentioned is food preservation. Fresh is great, but processed isn't always bad, especially when you are the one doing the processing. Food preservation has been an important (and sustainable!) aspect of human meals since the dawn of humanity.

Of course, many types of food preservation are labor intensive. Most restaurants will have a difficult time making enough preserved food for their customers, especially if they are doing stove-top processing. What might come in handy is, one guess, a community canning center, which would have the commercial retorts, steam kettles, filling equipment and other tools that would allow efficient and effective processing of significant amounts of food. In other words, a community canning center could be a great resource for sustainable restaurants.

For the professional cooks and chefs out there ... any comments and ideas on how you might use such a resource would be appreciated.

Amy Scattergood does have an article on delicious, mild and seasonal green garlic (Kinder, Gentler Green Garlic Mellows out the Menu). Give them a try! And, why not try pickling some for the March Can Jam?