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MONTREAL — Mark Trealout had almost no farming experience when he agreed, six years ago, to move to his girlfriend Laura Boyd's family farm, east of Lake Simcoe. It was an experiment that would test whether the couple could produce most of the food they put on their own table.
Mr. Trealout turned out to be a fast learner and the couple soon found themselves with more organic produce than they could consume.
Their solution? Ms. Boyd's granny taught the pair to preserve food by canning, pickling, freezing and drying.
"It's become integral to our diet during the off-season," Mr. Trealout says.
Erin Bade Weinbaum, who runs a company that makes organic preserves, encourages those who want to make their own to start by experimenting. (Fred Thornhill for The Globe and Mail)
In the wake of recent consumer scares about bisphenol A in canned goods, people such as Mr. Trealout are spreading the word about canning and preserving.
The processes can be learned by home cooks with small kitchens, they say, and summer and early autumn is the best time to preserve the produce from farmers' markets, while it's the most abundant, affordable and delicious. It's also a way to keep basics on hand throughout the winter .
"Anyone who is comfortable in the kitchen can do this," Mr. Trealout says.
"It's just a matter of learning a different set of skills."
Mr. Trealout and Ms. Boyd have embellished granny's recipes with more exotic spices and herbs - adding mustard seed and peppercorns to canned vegetables, for example.
Last year they pickled a batch of baby carrots with fennel seed.
"They turned out fantastic," he says.
Colette Murphy taught herself to can basics such as tomato sauce, peaches and blackberries more than 30 years ago when she was at home with her newborn son on a small farm on Vancouver Island.
"We only had a very tiny kitchen in a two-bedroom cottage," she says. "All you really need is a large soup pot."
These days Ms. Murphy, owner of Urban Harvest, an organic and heirloom seed distributor, makes her own sun-dried tomatoes and herb jellies, and preserves summer ratatouille within the confines of her Toronto kitchen.
She preserves pears and peaches in a syrup of water and honey - delicious over yogurt as a snack or dessert, she says.
Her herbs are dried for use in salad dressings; wild raspberries are frozen for use in pies and smoothies, and tomatoes are sun-dried or canned to make winter soups and sauces.
Some vegetables are best kept by freezing - a fast and easy preserving method.
The end product can be used in a variety of soups, sauces and casseroles, says Nancy Gingrich, who makes a line of pickles and relishes in St. Jacobs Country, Ont., called Kountry Kitchen Cupboard.
The easiest are corn and sweet peas, she says. She simply blanches the vegetables - kernels are cut from the cob and peas picked from the pods - and packs them into containers to be frozen.
"It's not as good as straight from the garden," she admits. "But it's still great to have in the winter."
Preserving experts say the trickiest part of the job is figuring out the acidity levels of fruits and vegetables - some of which require added citric acid or lemon juice to be safely canned.
Jams can require pectin, a gelling agent, and sometimes antioxidants, such as tiny amounts of added ascorbic acid (vitamin C) or vinegar to prevent discoloration.
Joshna Maharaj, chef at the Stop, a Toronto food bank and community food centre, learned to can and pickle two summers ago when the centre's 8,000-square-foot organic garden yielded two tonnes of produce, some of which would have spoiled otherwise.
"Get your hands on a good preserving cookbook or ask around," she advises beginners.
"Everyone had a bit of wisdom to share."
Erin Bade Weinbaum, chef-owner of a line of jams called Pigeon River, says she does not use packaged pectin because she markets her products as all-natural.
Since all fruits contain pectin, with underripe fruits containing the most, she mixes fruits in her recipes.
"You have to experiment a bit," Ms. Bade Weinbaum says. "But someone just starting out could use pectin. It's foolproof and you'll be done quickly."
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Preserve this
STRAWBERRIES
