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  • From: Clansgian AT wmconnect.com
  • To: homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [Homestead] Canned pumpkin
  • Date: Thu, 23 Oct 2008 13:22:10 EDT

In a message dated 10/23/2008 6:06:26 AM Pacific Daylight Time,
lisakvperry AT gmail.com writes:


> >While we're at it, what foods would you prefer to can (if any) v.
> dehydrating?

I rather view it as this: Foods that are canned are not the same as the same
food dehydrated, although it doesn't always translate into one being better
than the other.

Take the case of green beans. And let me throw freezing into the mix of
preservation methods. If you pressure can the green beans you get beans that
have
been modified, 'cooked' perhaps more than you would cooking them fresh. They
are still very good and last for decades. If you blanche and freeze them,
they are a bit more like fresh cooked but they don't last but a few months in
that state. You can also cook the green beans ready to eat and freeze those.

The quality is even higher and they last even a shorter time in the freezer.

Add to that pickled green beans. Also green beans can be preserved by salting
and these are more like fresh green beans than any other method of
preservation. You rinse out mos of the salt before cooking.

Then green beans can be dried giving 'shucky beans' or 'leather britches'.
When they are cooked they neigher look nor taste like canned green beans.
They
are a different vegetable in their own right.

So which is best? It doesn't help, thinks I, to have a "preferred" method
but rather to realize that different methods give different results. Pick
the
result you want and thereby pick the method.

Dried (that is, dehydrated) shelled beans are a good staple and keep forever.
You can also can them. But you can also can them at the green shell stage
when the bean is its largest and most mature but hasn't yet begun to dry.
Beans canned at this stage have totally different flavor and consistency than
dried or canned dried beans. Someone went home to visit family in Maine
where
they have Jacob's Cattle beans in all the grocery stores and broght me a few
pounds which I planted. We green-shell canned most of them and when I took
her a
few quarts, she demanded the recipe. She'd eaten Jacob's Cattle beans all
her
life but never like that. I could scarcely convince her that the recipe was
beans, water, and salt. The trick was to shell them just as the hulls turned
yellow. That's what made a difference in the taste.




>
> >Can you store in canning jars or how do you store or keep dehydrated foods?
> I don't have a vacuum sealer gadget.
>

We put almost all dehydrated food in canning jars and then if we suspect bugs
might be a problem, we freeze them, thaw them, and freeze them again. Then
they are stored right along beside the rest of the canned goods. And the
quality lasts for years.


"We eat what we can,
And what we can't, we can."


James




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