Gauteng Smallholder Gauteng Smallholder November 2011 | Page 39

IN THE KITCHEN
Preserving the time-honoured way
T
he time of year has
arrived when
smallholders can start
to squirrel surplus produce
away for use next year when
the garden is barren once
more.
Home preserving, of meat,
vegetables, fruit, fish and
even eggs, was a time-
honoured activity in the
kitchens of our grandparents,
but many of the skills and
techniques have been lost to
modern generations, who
now have the convenience of
ready-prepared foods and
factory-frozen produce in
If you don!t have your grandma!s
recipe book, here!s how to bottle
and preserve fruit and vegetables
like your ancestors
their supermarket refrigera-
tors.
At the same time, the slow-
food movement, sensitivity
among consumers to
concepts such as food-miles
and the high-cost of bought
food itself are driving modern
housewives back to the old
ways of their forebears.
So, if you are unlucky enough
not to have inherited an old
recipe or preserving book
from your grandmother, here
are some tried and tested
hints to get you on your way
to enjoying a fully stocked
old-style pantry.
Our forebears had various
methods of ensuring the
preservation of the harvest:
they could use sugar, smoke,
vinegar or salt. Nowadays we
have technology to make our
work easier, with a micro-
wave oven to speed up the
cooking, a freezer and small
dryers offering further
options.
Whichever method you are
going to use it is most
important that you use only
the best fruit or vegetables.
Overripe or blemished fruit
or stringy old beans will not
give you the best product –
choose tender young
produce in perfect condition.
As far as recipes are con-
cerned, some basic ones are
given hereunder, but you can
download any number from
the internet. Many are to be
found in the “homesteading”
37
www.sasmallholder.co.za
forums (that's what Americans
call smallholders).
Be aware, however, of some
terminology.
K Canning is what American
“homesteaders” call bottling
K A Mason jar is that
Americans call what we refer
to as a Consol jar.
K Many American recipes
use quarts and pints for
measurements. To metricate
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