Putting Food By

I remember my Grandma sending me “down cellar” to bring her a jar of green beans or tomatoes or peaches, or whatever she was after. I would go down the gray marine-painted wooden steps to a dark, earthy, but scrupulously clean cellar where wooden shelves built by my Grandpa were lined with blue glass jars with gray metal covers, all holding precious food for the winter. Sometimes Grandma would go with me and even at a tender age I could discern the pride and enjoyment she experienced just standing and looking at her rows of jars. I know that’s how she felt because that is how I feel when I can or preserve food. Nowadays, I am more likely to admire my neat, properly wrapped and properly labeled packages of frozen foods—which come close to, but not quite, being as satisfying.


To “put by” was a nineteenth-century way of saying to save something you can’t use now against the time when you’ll need it. The book “Putting Foods By” by Hertzberg, Greene and Vaughan, published in 1973 mentions many methods of preserving food including canning, freezing, preserve-making, drying, curing, wintering-over in a root cellar, rendering lard and making soap. All of this seems hardly necessary in these times of amazing variety and availability of all types of food unless you’re interested in deep satisfaction, economic prudence and knowing what is added to the food you feed your family. Oh—and if you’re a foodie, having fun!

I must confess that as much as I freeze, preserve and occasionally can, I have never really made more than a small scratch in the surface of drying, curing, rendering, and soap-making or root cellaring.

Canning relies on sterilization and the exclusion of air, both of which are accomplished by heat. The two things which determine how much heat is needed and how long to apply it are the organisms that cause spoilage or toxicity and the natural or added acid in the food itself. Heat is the determining factor. You’ve all heard horror stories of dangerous toxins, most notably Clostridium botulinum which causes a deadly disease called botulism. The low-acid and neutral foods must be processed in a pressure cooker which can attain much higher temperatures than boiling. The high acid fruits can be canned with the boiling method, using a time table given in any good and up-to-date canning book.

Freezing food is the easiest, fastest and most reliable method of preserving food available today, provided that you begin with a first-quality product to freeze. Freezing does not destroy bacteria or enzymes that eventually spoil or contaminate food but it temporarily arrests their development. That is the reason there are so many warnings about re-freezing food that has thawed. In order to make freezing the wonderful money and time saver it potentially can be, follow all instructions scrupulously—especially about wrapping—and be sure your freezer holds food at 0 degrees or below. I have one of those air-vacuuming heat-sealing appliances that makes quality freezing even more do-able.

Drying is probably the oldest method of preserving food and is still used in areas where the other means are not feasible. The early settlers from Europe were taught how to dry their food by the Indians and many of the pioneer families brought most of their stores in this fashion across the country since they have roughly one-sixth to one-third the bulk of their original state. Wooden trays with slats can be purchased or plans for building them can be had from the library. Different foods are dried both indoors and outdoors, using the above-mentioned trays or your oven or a purchased dryer.

All the other old-timey methods of preserving food are intriguing, but impractical in any real sense. Root-cellaring requires an old-fashioned cellar that is about 38 degrees, with some vegetables needing temperatures hovering around freezing. That is hard to accomplish at all, much less maintain in our modern homes.

Salting and smoking are tedious, to say the least, and though interesting really do not result in a superior product to that which you can purchase.

Rendering lard and making soap are really hobby-type activities that are also fun, actually relatively simple to do and produce specialty products that only a few people will use. But if you’re interested or just curious (as I always am) there are several good books that will instruct you on how to proceed.

Preserving fruits and vegetables with sugar or salt into jams, jellies, conserves and preserves as well as pickles and relishes is a great way to begin preserving food, for the operation is really simple and the results delightful—especially for unique gifts.

Now that the pumpkins are in the market, I am going to try this simple recipe for kicks:

Sweet Pumpkin Pickle

6 cups prepared pumpkin
2 cups vinegar
2 cups sugar
2 large sticks whole cinnamon

Prepare pumpkin by peeling and cubing flesh, discarding seeds and inner pulp. Place pumpkin cubes in a colander and set over boiling water; make sure water does not touch the pumpkin. Cover and steam until just tender. Drain. Simmer vinegar, sugar and cinnamon for 15 minutes. Add pumpkin cubes and simmer 3 minutes. Set aside for 24 hours. Heat and simmer 5 minutes more. Remove cinnamon. Pack boiling hot in sterilized jars, adjust lids and process in a Boiling-Water Bath for 5 minutes to ensure the seal. Makes 3 pints.