Rhubarb, greens and tomato sauce from last summer’s garden; organically raised beef, chickens and myriad vegetables from a local farm; wild saskatoons from an off-the-beaten Qu’Appelle Valley path — all were frozen solid in my treasured hand-me-down deep freeze. I would often go downstairs just to gaze at it lovingly, opening its lid to contemplate my locally sourced trophies while patting myself evermore righteously on the back for doing my part to eat locally and preserve the abundance of the short Saskatchewan harvest.
Why not? The deep freeze is a key piece of equipment for many families, whether or not they’re particularly interested in sustainable eating habits. But for the locavore, food preservation is like an extra special Brownie badge proudly displayed on their food activist uniform.
Oh, how easily assumptions can crumble. In the heat of July, I arrived home from two weeks of vacation to a mysteriously funky odour. It took another couple of days to discover the source: the deep freeze plug knocked slightly from the wall — just enough to disrupt that all-too-fragile flow of electricity responsible for maintaining my food in its perfectly solid state.
And just like that, the proud remnants of past seasons were gone — a couple hundred dollars worth of food, carefully grown, harvested and preserved only to wind up stewing in a putrid soup in my basement. More costly yet, the freezer itself is probably ruined for good. Weeks later, bloody juice still seeps from its insulation and a nasty smell persists.
Heartbreaking, yes. Tears were shed and harsh self-recriminations flowed as rotten meat juice was bailed from the bottom of the freezer. But as hard as the waste was to bear, a profound lesson was dawning on me. I can tout the perils of energy overconsumption, non-renewable energy systems and peak oil ‘til I’m blue in the face. But this was the first time I actually felt the folly of relying so heavily on something so fragile. The incident forced me to ask, how sustainable have my local eating habits actually been? Even if I grow and harvest raspberries myself, can I justify eating them in February if it means I have to constantly supply power for their preservation?
Serendipitously, just as the food was rotting I’d begun to explore food preservation techniques that don’t rely as heavily on electricity. It seems the art of preserving food over long winter months is becoming a priority for increasing numbers of people. Gone are the days when canning was considered a hobby reserved for grannies — now jars and pressure canners fly off the shelves of your local Sally Ann. From canning to drying to fermenting to smoking, there are a host of options for preserving food that can use less (or no) electricity, taste great and keep food even longer.
Whether it’s using solar energy to power a food dehydrator for drying fruits and vegetables, tapping in to the alchemy of fermentation to make sauerkraut, kimchi, sourdough or yogurt, or apprenticing with a senior to learn their canning wisdom, there are many ways to explore food preservation methods that won’t crap out if the grid goes down. Even seed saving can (and should) been seen as a way to preserve food and make sure that our vitally important food system becomes increasingly secure. Here (left) are some ideas to help make sure you have food when you need it most!
Tips & tricks for preserving the harvest
Harvest herbs throughout the season and hang them upside down in bunches. Make sure they’re completely dried before storing them. Herbs such as mint and lemon balm are perennial, grow like weeds, will keep growing after you cut them and make wonderful teas throughout the winter.
Forage for common weeds such as lambsquarter (also known as “wild spinach” – yep, it tastes like spinach and is extremely nutritious!). Use it dried for winter soups.
Can your fruit using local honey rather than imported sugar. Or don’t bother importing at all and keep your own bees (some cities in Saskatchewan allow this).
Chop up a cabbage, sprinkle it with salt to draw its moisture out, pack it in a crock or jar and weigh it down to keep all the cabbage under the liquid. Cover and keep it in a cool place, and in a few weeks, voila! Sauerkraut!
Learn from the indigenous people of Nepal and experiment with fermenting vegetables that create their own brine without salt — leafy green members of the brassica family (collards, kale, kohlrabi leaves) can be crushed and covered in their own juices to ferment over a couple weeks. Then dry them in the sun or oven and use them in soups.
Before canning tomatoes for pasta sauce or salsa, separate some seeds for saving. Place them and a small amount of water in a glass jar, keep the mixture in a cool room and stir it regularly for three or four days. Seeds worth saving will sink to the bottom. Rinse the seeds until they are clean and then spread them on a screen. They’ll dry in one or two days.
It’s possible to can practically anything (meat, fish, veg, etc.), but knowing what equipment to use and how to do it safely is key. Do your research, or better yet, find a local senior who’s expert at canning and arrange a work bee with them.
Getting creative about preserving the harvest is fun and extremely empowering! But these tips are meant to get you thinking, not intended as comprehensive instructions. Canning, fermenting, drying, seed saving and even freezing can be tricky to do right, so make sure you do your research.
Books to request from your local library or independent bookseller:
Wild Fermentation: The Flavor, Nutrition and Craft of Live-Culture Foods (Sandor Ellix Katz, Chelsea Green Publishers)
The Solar Food Dryer (Eben Fodor, New Society Publishers)
Preserving Food Without Freezing or Canning (Gardeners & Farmers of Terre Vivant, Chelsea Green Publishers)
Depletion and Abundance: Life on the New Home Front (Sharon Astyk, New Society Publishers)
Great article. We grew our largest garden yet this summer and are in the midst of preserving. I have long struggled with the idea of putting everything in the freezer (or even running the fridge), especially when we have such an abundance of cold and freezing capacity outside for half the year. This year I have also been thinking about how much water we use in canning, and the energy it takes to keep everything boiling. Maybe it’s less than running a freezer year round, I don’t know. I have also had the chance live in both a rural and an urban setting, and I have to admit that this stuff seems easier in the country.
One thing I would caution though is that while “the old ways” of doing things are often quite good and useful, they are sometimes unsafe or misinformed. (My grandma used to can meats and vegetables without acids or a pressure canner) But as long as we can power our computers, there is a lot of good info online. Some US universities have amazing online resources - maybe some canadian ones too but I haven’t seen them yet.
Happy preserving!
thanks for that
I’ve enjoyed reading these types of blogs. Exciting stuff! Solar energy has always been a fascination with me.