Preservation Link Roundup 8/18/10

I really appreciate that Well Preserved discusses in some depth the acidity problem in canning tomatoes (Well Preserved Tomato Sauce Recipe). Yes, the USDA is pretty conservative and you can get away with fudging their safety guidelines quite often. After all, your grandmother probably violated a number of their current rules and you're reading this, right? But,

The spoilage risk is very real. The family who taught ours lost an entire batch (around 200 jars) due to low acid and things began to ferment in bottle. They lost an entire weekend of work, a virtual crop of tomatoes and sauce for the year.

The Atlantic Food Channel has an excellent article on various ways to preserve venison, from curing to corning and, of course, making sausage (both fresh and fermented) (Venison Sausage: A Whole Different Animal). Bonus for Southern California readers, the deer was shot on Catalina Island.

Another cured meat (and a favorite of mine) is pâté. The Kitchn provides a few links on the subject (Do You Have a Good Recipe for Homemade Pâté?). Be sure to check out the comment section for additional links. If you've never made pâté or a rillette or similar, I highly suggest giving it a try. They can be surprisingly easy to make and are a wonderful side dish or appetizer. And you can play with flavors quite a bit. I make my own teriyaki-flavored "spam" for use in homemade musubi.

Food in Jars has a good post on substituting other salts for pickling salt (if you can't easily find it) (Canning 101: On Substituting Salt in Pickling). At the end of the day, there are only a few things you need to know:

1. Substitute by weight. 3/4 of an ounce per tablespoon for pickling salt. Simply weigh out the other salt.
2. Make sure the salt is pure. No iodine or free flow agents. The only ingredient listed should be salt.
3. Take into account that other salts won't dissolve as quickly as pickling salt.

If you can't find pickling salt, popcorn salt makes an excellent substitution. You can also process kosher salt into something resembling pickling salt by pulsing it in a food processor a few times.

The Blueberry Files goes through the steps of pressure canning beets (Pressure Canning Beats). Beets are an excellent candidate for pressure canning, since they generally survive the process quite well. Of course, if you don't have a pressure canner you can pickle beets and can them with a boiling water bath. There are plenty of recipes out there.

A Nutritionist Eats is getting into canning and has a Ball Canning Discovery Kit to giveaway (Canning with Lucia). Visit her blog for information on winning the kit.

I can't emphasize enough how canning works best as a social event. Feast After Famine learns canning from some neighbors at a canning party, "replete with wine and cheese and good cheer... "(Canning Party). Why not invite some neighbors over to learn canning from you?

Tigress in a Jam takes advantage of the fantastic stone fruit out there to make a lovely preserve using summer savory (an inspired choice) and white pepper (Nectarine Preserves with Summer Savory & White Pepper).

I've got mixed feelings about white pepper. It is generally used in dishes as a substitute for black pepper when you don't want little black flecks in your dish, such as in white sauces, lightly colored soups or mashed potatoes. However, there are distinct flavor differences. To me, black pepper is fruitier and more well-rounded, while white pepper is a little more directly spicy with less depth of flavor. More importantly, however, I think that white pepper suffers more from being pre-ground than black pepper. Frankly, I hate pre-ground white pepper. I dislike pre-ground black pepper, but can't stand the white pepper version. So, please, use freshly ground white pepper when you do use it.

Canning seems to get all the press, but sometimes it is important to remember that freezing is an important aspect of food preservation. Putting By freezes their bell peppers (they don't can well by themselves) (Bell Peppers). I like everything they did, except place the pepper strips into gallon ziploc bags. You should usually freeze in quantities that you would use. That way you don't have defrost/refreeze what you haven't used. So, instead of gallon ziplocs, why not quart or pint bags? And I can't emphasize this enough when freezing: label, label, label! When you freeze a lot of stuff, it will save many headaches months later.

Freezing is great, but they seem to fill up quite quickly, so back to canning it is. Putting By also has a post on canning pasta sauce (Pasta Sauce). They use those commercial square-ish pasta jars that I know many people have around the house. I know many people who use them for canning successfully, but I do have to point to the FAQ from the companies page:

Can I reuse the Classico® jar for home canning?
No. A coating is applied at the glass plant to reduce scratching and scuffing. If scratched, the jar becomes weaker at this point and can more easily break. This would increase the risk of the jar breaking when used for canning. Also, the lighter weight of our current jar could make it unsafe for home canning.

Do as you will, just passing on the information.

The LA Weekly's Squid Ink blog reviews yet another new canning book, Canning for a New Generation (Cookbook Review: Canning For A New Generation).

The book might as well be called Canning and Preserving For An Eager But Sometimes Lazy (Or Just Plain Busy) Generation. And that's exactly why we think it's pretty great.

Preservation Link Roundup - Catching Up - 4/9/10

Since last week I discussed pickling leftover Easter Eggs, I decided to share a "before" shot of some of the four dozen eggs I pickled this week. In a couple of weeks, I'll share a photo of the finished eggs and even a dissection (to see the color gradation inside). I tried the pineapple pickled eggs and a soy sauce/pineapple brine.

Master Food Preserver (and co-author of this blog), Delilah Snell, has finalized her food preservation classes for the near future - check them out! I'll be doing one, wish I could do more, but my new job means my schedule is uncertain right now: Food Preservation Classes, Workshops and More - FINAL

She also is on the lookout for free fruit to preserve, especially loquats (Adventure in Loquats and Other Backyard Fruit - and a Special Request for Readers of this Blog!):

if you have any fruit trees that you want me to pick or you can pick and hand over-i will give you a few jars of whatever i make....viva Spring!

I was a participant in "loquat-a-palooza" last year, they are a great preserving fruit (though a little labor intensive).

Food in Jars takes a look at Ashley English's new book: Homemade Living: Canning & Preserving with Ashley English: All You Need to Know to Make Jams, Jellies, Pickles, Chutneys & More (A Good Book for the Can Jam or Anytime). She discovers that it is perfect for providing some ideas for April's Can Jam.

Not everybody has the room for a backyard smoker, or even a backyard. The Chicago Tribune runs a nice story on stovetop smoking (Smoke Signals). If you haven't tried smoking food at home yet, the stovetop method is a great place to start. You'll be surprised by the flavors you can achieve. I love smoked foods, and what you can do easily at home beats the heck out of what is available commercially. Smoke is another one of those techniques that can be used to transform routine dishes and take them to a new level. Mmmmm ... smoked roasted chicken salad.

Leda Meredith of her eponymous Urban Homestead did a radio interview on the Heritage Radio Network's Hot Grease in which she discusses lacto-fermentation as a preservation method among other topics (Hot Grease Interview).

If you are lucky enough to have access to ramps (foraged or in farmers' markets), then you might want to read a bit about using and preserving them. Local Kitchen provides some excellent ideas and information (Ramps):

The Spring ramp season is short; to preserve your bounty for the coming months, blanche & freeze the leaves as you would chard or kale, or make pesto or infused oil or vinegar as you would with fresh herbs. Dry chopped bulbs and leaves in a dehydrator or low oven, or use in pickles, chutneys, or confit. For a host of allium preserving recipe ideas, check out the March Can Jam round-up. I have a big pile o’ ramps to cook with, and I hope to score some more to preserve, so I’ll update this post as I experiment. Stay tuned!

The Canning Doctor roasts a chicken and then makes and cans stock from the carcass (Pressure Canning Again). This is an excellent practice whenever you roast a chicken (one of the greatest, most versatile meals there is). If you don't have time to make the stock that day or the next, freeze the carcass and make the stock when you do have the time.

The Practical Preserver provides instructions for properly freezing strawberries (Strawberry Season). Though I'm a huge fan of canning, in my book, it is always a good idea to have some frozen berries available in the pantry - then you are ready for all sorts of quick desserts and sweet/savory dishes.

One Perfect Bite makes a versatile pesto (aren't most pestos versatile?) from homemade sundried cherry tomatoes (Red Pesto Sauce + Home-Style Sun-Dried Tomatoes). It'll be awhile before tomato season is back, but I'm lucky enough to have a stock of homemade sundried (actually, dehydrator'd) cherry tomatoes from last August to give this pesto a try.

What Julia Ate is clearing out her freezer by canning the contents, in this case combining summer stone fruit with her homemade pectin (Apricot Plum Jam with Orange Pectin). Once again, she shares her valuable experience in working with homemade pectin.

After learning how easy it is to make buttermilk, What Julia Ate also learns how easy it is to make crème fraîche (Crème Fraîche). Crème fraîche is basically buttermilk made from cream, so it is richer and thicker. It is an excellent substitute for sour cream in most recipes, and is incredibly useful in its own right. It doesn't curdle and it is a great addition to hot dishes, such as soups and sauces. Or use it to make your own "ranch" dressing.

Preservation Link Roundup - Catching Up - 4/8/10

So, last week was spring break for many as well as Easter and I had to work six days. I work the afternoons/evenings and in the mornings I was driving an hour each way to interview for my new job. So far this week I've had to drive to my new job twice in order to sign all the paperwork that goes with starting in a new place. Unfortunately for me, I forgot that when you get a new job you need to show proof that you can be employed (passport or SSN card and Drivers License, etc.) so, I had to make that second trip to take care of that little detail. In any case, that is what has kept me from my updates. It'll take me a some time to get caught up, so please be patient. I've also got a few special posts planned (such as a book review), but those will have to wait as well. Oh, yeah, and I've got to get some studying in for my Master Gardener class (I dropped my studies for Advanced Sommelier for now, but will have to pick that back up in the summer).

The New York Times Magazine has a review of the Little House Cookbook, based on the cooking found in Laura Ingall Wilder's Little House books (Little House in the Hood). Preservation, of course, was an important part of life in the big woods and on the prairie, and it isn't clear how much preservation makes it into the book, though the review touches on it, but it would be interesting to learn more about preservation in frontier America.

The Jam and Jelly Lady provides a "semi-homemade" recipe for a trifle, layers of pound cake, cream (in this case, a tarter cream cheese mixture), fruit and jam (Strawberry Amaretto Trifle). The actual recipe is here: Jammin' Good Food. Trifles are simple, fresh and delicious. Garnish with some fresh mint and served chilled as they are wonderful warm spring evening or summer desserts. They can be prepared well ahead of time and don't require any cooking, unless you insist on making your own pound cake (which isn't necessarily a bad thing). They are wonderful for playing with flavors as well. Add your favorite liqueur, herb or even spice.

Well Preserved has just been going crazy with some wonderful spring preserving posts:

• Dandelion Wine, Jelly and Coffee - A fine introduction to the possibilities of preserving dandelions.
• Lamb Jerky - Something delicious that you are unlikely to find in your local megalomart or even gourmet food store.
• Rhubarb Two Ways - Simple jams and a chutney. I can't recommend playing with rhubarb enough - it is another of those secret ingredients that can punch up so many different dishes without anyone knowing for sure what you've done.
• Beech Tree Noyau (Infused Gin) - I'm not really sure if there are beech trees in Southern California, but if I find any, I'm going to give this a try.
• Asparagus - Pickled and Pressure Canned - I'm a fan of pickling asparagus, of course, but haven't tried pressure canning them yet. I'll have to give it a try.
• Pickled Fiddleheads - I used to forage these in New England, but haven't found many in Southern California (though last week on one of my walks I did find some Alpine Strawberries). They're delicious freshly steamed or sautéed, but pickling sounds delicious as well.
• Wild Leeks (or Ramps) - There is very useful advice on foraging - making sure to leave enough after harvesting for the wild crop to flourish.

Serious Eats alerted me to the fact that I missed Peanut Butter and Jelly Day, which is held each April 2nd (Happy Peanut Butter and Jelly Day). What an opportunity to make something special to celebrate the holiday. It is going on my calendar for next year.

Tired of traditional scones? Looking for something a tad bit healthier? Why not try some oatcake bannocks? Serious Eats has a recipe for what may be the scone's wholegrain ancestor (Sunday Brunch: Bannocks). Delicious with clotted cream and your favorite jam or marmalade.

Food in Jars turns some whole preserved fruit into a delicious cake (Pear Cake). Sounds great, would probably work with a number of different fruits and FiJ recommends it with yogurt for breakfast ... sounds like my way to start the day.

Hot Water Bath comes home to a nearly empty pantry and improvises some Triscuit/chevre/pickled pepper snacks (Thank Goodness I Canned: Pickled Hot Peppers). They may not sound particularly fancy, but I bet they tasted pretty darn good. Hot pickled peppers are great to have around - and don't forget the brine:

The canning brine (I use a very standard 2 parts vinegar, 2 parts water, 1/2 part kosher salt) can likewise be used in marinades, drinks (yes! Really!), as a stir-in for plain rice or potatoes, or to punch up the flavor in all kinds of otherwise insipid dishes.

Leda Meredith's Urban Homestead makes a pizza chock full 'o local preserving goodness: tomato puree leftover from some home canned tomatoes, lacto-fermented garlic, in state cheese and foraged wild greens (Wild Pizza Improv).

Miia Monthly's sauerkraut is ready for eating (Sauerkraut is Done). She uses an interesting technique before putting the sauerkraut in the refrigerator, however - she removes the brine, boils it, chills it and puts the kraut back into the brine and refrigerates it.

Tigress in a Jam provides a little more guidance on April's Can Jam: Herbs (Preserving Herbs in Jars). Tigress points to some of her favorite herb books, some links, and provides these comments:

the rules state that the food in focus must be integral to the canned product. in the first few months when canning citrus, carrots and alliums it was easy to consider the chosen produce to be the main ingredient. this month's herbs are a little different and i would interpret integral as being essential to the flavor of the preserve but not necessarily the main ingredient.

this will open up a world of possibilities and i hope will allow those in zones where things are beginning to burst from the ground and jump off the trees to take advantage of what's springing in tandem with the essential herb. and for those of us who are still anticipating spring's abundance it may offer an opportunity to use up the last of the root-cellared produce.

finally, herbs are generally considered the leafy green parts of a plant (i would include flowers in here too) while spices are derived from other parts of the plant, particularly the seeds, berries, bark and roots. so while spices are certainly welcome in this month's entry they are not considered the food in focus and must be in addition to the integral herb.

Finally, for today, Two Frog Home shares a homemade pattern for knitting a cover for mason jars - perfects for gifts (Knitted Jar Pouch). Darn cool.

Preservation Link Roundup 3/26/10

Sharon Astyk, author of Independence Days: A Guide to Sustainable Food Preservation and Storage, will be hosting an online course in food preservation starting April 15th (Food Storage and Preservation Class!). The cost is $150 (there are some scholarships) and you can pay with barter.

The New York Times Fashion & Style section provides yet another article on the growing popularity of kombucha (A Strange Brew May Be a Good Thing). Although you can buy kombucha more readily, making it is so inexpensive, costing nothing more than brewing tea with a little sugar and having some patience.

Food Forward, a group that gleans or harvests otherwise unused fruit in Los Angeles, reports that they're "Can It" initiative has its first product - preserved meyer lemons (CAN IT’s! First Vintage is here).

If you recall, about a week ago Put a Lid On It pickled some beets - but not simply for the beets, but so that the beet brine could subsequently used to make pickled eggs. Well, now the pickled eggs are ready (Pennsylvania Pickled Easter Eggs). Looks like a great recipe. I'll be writing more on pickled eggs next week.

The Pickle Blog from Rick's Picks (an artisan pickle maker in NYC) has an interesting book to read, Pickled Potted and Canned, a history of food preservation (Pickled, Potted and Canned). I look forward to Rick's forthcoming review, but it is definitely going on my wish list right away.

This is cool. The LAist reports that urban farming has taken a big step towards legality in Los Angeles (Fruit & Flowers Go Legit: Ordinance on Urban Farming Approved). What this means is that (hopefully) soon small-scale urban farmers will be able to legally sell their produce and flowers in Los Angeles. This can only be good for food preservation.

Preservation Link Roundup 3/18/10

Well Preserved learns some lessons from something that will happen to every canner, eventually (I Coulda Been a Contenda…Broken Mason Jars…). There is only one common jar breakage scenario I would add ... processing in a boiling water bath without a rack to keep the jars off of direct heat. WP also has some great tips on what to do after you have a jar shatter.

Rufus and Clementine provide another lesson for cannners - label those jars (CurseWorthy Cooking | That Mystery Marmalade).

I made a peanut butter and spiced citrus marm sandwich. I got so excited and angry to the point of letting the expletives fly mid-bite. It was ecstasy in my mouth and I still don’t know how to get it back again.

The minimum you should put on a label is the name of the preserve and the date. I make a habit of putting the ingredients (in order of weight) and the processing time. Recently, I've also taken to add the source of the produce ... such as "Mud Creek Ranch Citrumelo Marmalade." Keeping a preserving journal (paper or electronic) is also a very good idea, especially if you are experimenting with recipes.

Rhubarb is sometimes called "pie plant." I think it should be called "preserving plant."

The LA Weekly's food blog, Squid Ink, notes that some beautiful rhubarb is showing up at the local markets in their weekly Farmers Market Report (What's in Season at the Farmers Markets: Rhubarb). I saw some amazing looking rhubarb at the Santa Monica market yesterday. By itself, with a variety of fruits (not simply strawberry) in a jam, or in a compote (sublime), rhubarb is an excellent addition to your preserving repertoire. Its tartness is a great match for the high sugar content of many preserves.

The New York Times' Minimalist Cook explains, simply, how to thicken yogurt into any consistency from Greek to cheese (A Recipe Secret Wrapped in a Towel). Save that whey! Use it for fermentation or drink it (high in protein and probiotics).

Food in Jars has opened an Open Sky store (Find Food in Jars at Open Sky). Her store is here: OpenSky: Food in Jars.

Tigress in a Jam is excited to soon receive Ashley English's new preserving book Homemade Living: Canning & Preserving with Ashley English: All You Need to Know to Make Jams, Jellies, Pickles, Chutneys & More. Tigress also lists a bookshelf worth of new preserving books coming soon (A Lot O' New Preserving Books!). Which ones are worth getting? Who knows at this point.

Preservation Link Roundup 3/2/10

The Frugal Fraulein points to a new article of hers about Bisphenol A in canning jar lids (BPA and Canning Jar Lids).

After doing some research I am still going to use metal lids. I will be very cautious though and will never store jars upside down. At this point the alternative is glass jar lids and they are still too expensive for The Frugal Fraulein. Also a while back I purchase two cases of jar lids at a reduced rate. I keep them in my cool garage where they will never get really hot. Remember storing unused canning jar lids in a hot place can melt them together. Unsticking them can make them unable to adequately seal.

Read her full article: How Safe Are Canning Jar Lids?.

I agree with her on using the metal lids and this bit of advice:

I suggest that all canners write to Jarden Home Brands maker of Ball, Kerr, Golden Harvest, and Bernardin canning jars and lids with an appeal to research and find another solution. As consumers we can alter their business by refusing to make purchases from them and turning our business to other companies. Jarden's mailing address is Jarden Home Brands, 14611 W. Commerce Road, Daleville, IN 47334 and their [contact page is http://www.freshpreserving.com/pages/contact_us/10.php].

Kevin West defines marmalade as bitter and jam as sweet - there's a story there, read it - and so what he is calling tangerine "jam", most would call tangerine "marmalade" (Tangerine Jam). Here is a sample of the distinction, from one of Kevin's correspondents:

My own personal taste buds prefer marmalade to be a little bit rude. I like marmalade to ever so slightly slap me around the face. It's a good way to wake up in the morning. Short and sharp. I would describe this preserve as nearer to 'sweet and long', which is how I like my summers and affairs, just not so much my marmalades.

Gives you a whole new perspective on preserves.

Food author/activist Michael Pollan gives an interview to Earth Eats about his most recent book Food Rules (Michael Pollan: Food Rules, Practical Advice For Local Eating). Last month, I wrote about the intersection of food preservation and Food Rules (Food (Preservation) Rules). Pollan clearly recognizes the importance of food preservation for eating locally and sustainably:

Well, I think there are challenges to eating that way [locally and sustainably]. One is eating that way through the winter in a place like Indiana. There are a lot of people who are giving a lot of thought to food preservation, how do you do that well, finding people who are growing well under glass. So, extending the season for local food I think is an area where there’s a lot of work that can be done and it’s worth doing. [emphasis added]

If you haven't read Food Rules yet, I highly recommend it ... and it is less than $10 on Amazon. Pollan's other books are classics as well.

Sharon Astyk, author of Independence Days: A Guide to Sustainable Food Storage & Preservation, has declared the "Independence Day Challenge III" (Independence Days Year III). The challenge is basically about taking small steps towards a more sustainable way of living and eating. It isn't about stunts, like eating only within 100 miles for six months, but about doing small tasks that lead toward food independence. The small steps ultimately add up. Here are a few of the steps Sharon suggests:

• Plant something.
• Harvest something (neighborhood fruit trees count).
• Preserve something.
• Waste not.
• Want not.
• Build community food systems.
• Eat the food.

This is something that everyone can participate in. And, even if you don't participate actively, just considering the challenge is worthwhile.

Serious Eats has a food preservation quiz (Quiz: How Much Do You Know About Food Preservation?). Let's get that average score up, people!

This past Sunday I talked about using fat as a preservative in confits and rillettes (Preservation Link Roundup 2/28/10). Yesterday, Serious Eats published a recipe for pork rillettes (Cook the Book: Pork Shoulder Rillettes). If you've never made rillettes, I highly recommend giving it a try.

Congratulations to Food in Jars for being nominated by the 1st annual Saveur Best Food Blog Awards (Nominated in the Saveur Best Food Blog Awards!). Vote (registration required) here: Cast Your Vote for ... Best Special Interest Blog.

Epicurious waxes metaphorically about a preserved lemon condiment, chermoula (Preserved Lemons Redux: Charmoula the Wise and Thoughtful).

We see that Mayo and Ketcho were simple happy girls; very popular and easygoing, they had a lot of friends. But the youngest daughter had a deep internal life and spent her time searching for perfection.

What a coincidence, I was planning on serving chermoula with some pistachio-crusted halibut on Wednesday evening.

Food Forward is a Los Angeles-based group that seeks to harvest backyard fruit and fruit from non-maintained orchards with volunteer labor. The harvest is then (100%) donated to local food banks. They are hosting the Juicy Fruit express this Saturday, March 6th (Fresh Juice March Edition).

Come join Food Forward on our first field trip to Bakersfield, CA! The Juicy Fruit Express is a vegetable oil run bus that will take 40 of us to an amazing citrus orchard in Bakersfield for a huge orange pick and BBQ on Saturday, March 6th. Tickets are only $20.00 per person – this includes your seat on the bus and all food, drinks and refreshments for the day

I've got other commitments, but it sounds great. Be sure to check their website out for other opportunities, such as a tangerine pick on Sunday.

via Good Food

Last but not least Small Measure is holding her monthly can giveaway (Small Measure Can-Do Contest, Round 9). In order to win, there isn't much more to do than comment on her post - read full details and fine print on her blog. It's worth it for a chance to get some Rhubarb Amaretto Chutney.

Preservation Link Roundup 2/28/10

Chickens in the Road has a nice little tutorial on making your own lard from excess fat (Make Your Own Lard). I'm not so sure about canning the lard, that isn't recommended by the USDA as far as I know, but freezing is a good way to store it.

Cooking in lard itself can be a food preservation method. The root of the cooking term "confit", for example, actually comes from the French word meaning "to preserve". By cooking and storing duck or goose in its own rendered fat, the meat could be preserved for months without refrigeration. That isn't recommended now, but you can still make confit today and store it in the refrigerator for a month if it isn't salt cured, and several months if it is first salt cured and then confited. The same principle works for such items as rillettes, which were made and then preserved with a layer of fat on top.

Slow cookers (aka Crock Pots) are a great and easy way to make confit.

Well Preserved is getting started in making sauerkraut (Fermenting Sauerkraut - Day 1). Excellent! When you want to get started in experimenting with fermented food, sauerkraut is the one I recommend to start with. It is quick and easy to prepare ... and they virtually always work. And, once you've got the basics down, it is easy to modify with various spices and other vegetables to make an almost infinite variety of different flavors and textures.

Laughing Duck Farm is giving away a retro-canning book (retro in look, updated in safety - The Farmer's Wife Canning & Preserving Cookbook), all you have to do to enter is post a comment on their blog (!!!! Giveaway !!!!).

Speaking of retro, 40sZen on Etsy is selling some vintage canning labels (Vintage Canning Jar Labels Rust Craft, in Box). They're cool just to look at.

Tigress in a Pickle goes over this month's Can Jam - alliums (Alliums). Kitchen Jam has some quick ideas, but intends to do more research (Tigress CanJam March: Exploring Alliums This Month).

Food (Preservation) Rules

In his book, In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto, food author Michael Pollan famously coined a call to action for how and what we eat: "Eat food. Mostly plants. Not too much." After studying nutrition and the ways food is produced in this country, he came to the conclusion that what and how we should eat is not really all that complicated. Rather than focusing on the complexities of carbohydrates, ratios of Omega-3 and Omega-6 fats, and the benefits of dietary fiber, he figured out that we can improve our physical health, benefit our environment and, at least in my view, cultivate our souls, by following his simple call to action.

Of course, such a simple saying leads to many more questions. "Eat Food"? Of course we eat food, what else would we eat? What Pollan means by "Eat Food" is to avoid things that are edible, but designed and developed by food scientists, made with ingredients chemically derived from corn and soy, and things no one keeps in their home pantry. In other words, Pollan is talking about real food, food that our ancestors ate for tens of thousands of years, before the industrial food revolution that really took off in the mid-part of the last century. Of course, this is just a very brief explanation of one part of Pollan's Rule, and much more could be said about it.

Therefore, in order to make it easier to follow his call to action, and to better understand what it means, Pollan has published a slim book with 64 rules that expand and frame his trademark saying. Each of the rules is short and simple, but Pollan also adds a paragraph or two of commentary to each rule, explaining a bit more about their origin and what they mean. The book, Food Rules, is a quick read, but full of wisdom and something that everyone who cares about food should have. It's only $5 on Amazon right now (Amazon: Food Rules). So what do you have to lose?

In any case, I would like to highlight a few of the rules and provide my own commentary on how they apply to food preservation - something I think is an important part of "Eat food. Mostly plants. Not too much."

Rule 2: Don't Eat Anything Your Great-Grandmother Wouldn't Recognize as Food

Not only would your grandmother recognize most home preserved foods, she probably knew how to make them herself. Indeed, it is a tragedy of our age that food preservation skills have gone into decline, skipping a generation or two or three. It is time to make the preserved foods your great-grandmother knew how to make.

Rule 5: Avoid Foods That Have Some Form of Sugar (or Sweetener) Listed Among the Top Three Ingredients.

Ah. Hm. So much for most jams and jellies. Except that there is an exception for special occasion foods (Rule 60). Actually, what this rule is really all about is the fact that sugar and all the variations thereof (High Fructose Corn Syrup, I'm talking about you) have snuck into many processed foods where we might not expect sugar ... and even where we might expect some sugar, processed foods contain obscene amounts. We know that jams and jellies have a lot of sugar, unless they're specially made to have lower sugar, so I think they're fine under this rule, used in moderation.

Rule 12: Shop the Peripheries of the Supermarket and Stay Out of the Middle

The periphery of the market is where the bakery, produce, dairy and butcher sections of the supermarket reside. The center section is where most of the heavily processed foods are. Shop on the periphery, and you are usually getting real food. Which is not to say that there isn't real food in the center section ... I mean, where else will you get your dried pasta? Nevertheless, by doing your own food preservation, you will be able to reduce the amount of items you need from the middle section of the supermarket.

Rule 13: Eat Only Foods that will Eventually Rot

Ah. Hm. Well, so much for food preservation. Of course, Pollan is referring to things like Twinkies, which have a shelf-life of twenty-five days (25!). Unnaturally long for baked goods. Other than fruit cakes, I can't think of any regular baking recipes that are moist and tender for nearly a month. Pollan does mention honey as having an indefinite shelf life, but I think that goes for all sorts of home food preservation.

Rule 16: Buy Your Snacks at the Farmers' Market

Ah, come on, Pollan. Yes, you can buy delicious dried fruit at the farmers' market, but you can also make your own dried fruit at home, often even better, thank you very much. I haven't seen my famous basil-infused sun-dried cherry tomatoes at any farmers' market. This is a good rule, if only it included making your own.

Rule 28: If You Have the Space, Buy a Freezer

Food preservation 101. A stand alone freezer is great for storage (and economy).

Rule 33: Eat Some Foods that have been Predigested by Bacteria or Fungi

Fermentation! Need I sing its praises anymore?

Rule 59: Try Not to Eat Alone
Rule 63: Cook

Both these rules are great. Eating should be a social affair, and cooking your own food is fantastic. I'd sort of like to combine them for food preservation, however. I do a lot of preservation on my own, but it is much more satisfying to preserve with friends and family.

Rule 62: Plant a Vegetable Garden, if You Have the Space, a Window Box if you Don't

Once you start gardening, sooner or later you will have more food than you can cook and give away. You can let it rot. Or ... you can preserve it one way or another.

These are just a few of Pollan's food rules. I could have spent more time discussing how they intersect with food preservation, but I think it would be better if you went and read the book and figured it out on your own. Enjoy!