BY JANET BROWN

Knowledge of preserving foods of all kinds through canning, drying, pickling, cellaring, fermenting, and freezing is at the very heart of a sustainable food system. At one time in our nation’s history, most Americans had some knowledge and system of food preservation as a part of their personal and communal food security plan. Today, far fewer Americans understand or practice any of these culinary art forms.

Beyond the practical, there are a whole host of other reasons to put up the harvest - beauty, rhythm, tradition, and the sensory delight of a creative endeavor that culminates in edible art. I fondly remember our annual summer visit to our Italian relatives in western Pennsylvania. They had a five acre homestead with a garden, poultry, and an orchard. They grew, raised, and preserved much of their own food.

I remember our aunts and cousins getting together in the late, hot, summer to drag the big picnic tables and benches under the old apple trees when it was time to pick apples. To avoid the heat in the kitchen, they used some stones and an old wire shelf to make an outdoor hearth and did their canning directly under the trees.

We laid large oilcloth table covers down over the worn tables and put out huge cutting boards, knives, and bowls. Altogether, the aunts had a formidable collection of hundreds of canning jars in all brands and sizes.

Everyone who wanted to participate would be put to use. We kids climbed up into the trees to pick apples and to shake and hit them down with sticks to the people on the ground. These were huge old standard apple trees (great for climbing) loaded with green and red apples. Our next task was apple sorting. Throughout the day, we would produce four products: whole apple slices—spiced and plain, quarts of applesauce, and pints of apple butter.

First, the best apples were sorted, peeled, and cut into slices. They were cooked with brown sugar, cinnamon, orange zest, and vanilla and sealed into jars. Thusly provisioned, my aunts could whip up a pie crust, dump in a jar of spiced apple slices, and have a freshly baked pie in less than an hour all winter long.

The less perfect apples were then placed into a large cauldron at the back of a fire. Nothing but apples went into the pot and they were stirred continually until they reached the right consistency for applesauce. Most of this was then canned, but a portion of the applesauce was left to continue cooking over the slow fire until it reached a caramel brown color and an intense apple flavor—apple butter.

It was a true assembly line—a team with a single goal in mind. Being a part of that canning assembly line was great fun. As a kid, it wasn’t that often that my labor was taken seriously, but it was on the canning line.

Below is a production canning method for tomato sauce. It is a great way to use those “seconds tomatoes”—tomatoes that are cosmetically challenged, but still firm, ripe, and delicious. You do not need to blanche and remove the skins or finely chop or sauté any of the ingredients. Everything goes into the pot at once. It makes a thick, intensely flavored sauce and uses up tons of tomatoes. When ingredients are closed up together over time within the special environment of the canning jar, they mingle, entwine, and fuse. Opening a jar of tomato sauce canned at the height of the season, full of the simmered- down flavor of twenty or more tomatoes and herbs, is to step through a sensory door into the summer garden—to savor captured sunlight in a jar. The result is a special aromatic and flavor experience unique to canned foods—extraordinary flavors that are not reproducible by any other means.

Janet Brown is a founding member and President of Marin Organic, an association of over 40 organic farmers and ranchers in Marin marketing their products under their own label, and a former program officer for food systems at the Center for Ecoliteracy in Berkeley. Currently, Janet works full time on the farm with her husband, Marty Jacobson. Marty and Janet have been certified organic farmers since 1994 and their farm, Allstar Organics, produces a diverse array of heirloom vegetables and a line of value added products including essential oils, hydrosols, dried herbs and herbal salts and sugars. www.allstarorganics.com

RECIPE

SIMPLE TOMATO SAUCE