Preserving Time in a Bottle (or a Jar) (Part 2)

Ms. Bone developed recipes using her creations, like poached pears with preserves. More Photos >

Even the pectin rebels generally follow the U.S.D.A.’s strict guidelines for canning procedures, which have become even stricter over the last two decades. “After the 1970s there was a real crackdown,” said Blake Slemmer, a lifelong canner and self-described “homesteader” in Atlanta who translates the detailed U.S.D.A. instructions into plainer language on his Web site, www.pickyourown.org.

“In the 1980’s there was a hard look at the science,” said Dr. Elizabeth Andress, director of the National Center for Home Food Preservation, who has worked with the U.S.D.A. for 25 years on developing the guidelines. “Canning is much safer and more reliable than when we began.” Current regulations forbid the simple open-kettle canning, in which hot food is spooned into hot jars, sealed, and left to cool. Now virtually all food must be processed after it goes into the jar, and cooks are firmly discouraged from canning vegetables other than tomatoes. (The high acidity of most ripe fruits helps discourage spoilers; most vegetables have no such natural protection.)

But experienced canners say that the warnings unnecessarily discourage novices. “You should be clean, but you shouldn’t be paranoid,” Ms. Mora said. “Imagine the conditions in which these techniques were developed.”

Although the science of preserving doesn’t change, tastes, economies and ideologies do.

Community canneries, where local farmers and cooks could once bring their produce to be canned, or do it themselves using large-scale equipment, have mostly disappeared. But in the Hudson Valley, a group in Schoharie County recently received a grant to help open a new one. Peter Pehrson, who is leading the project, said he was inspired and alarmed by the wasted produce on local farms that are geared for the commercial food market.

“The tradition here is for the community to come in and pick up the gleanings,” he said. “I couldn’t believe how much was left lying in the field.” Mr. Pehrson said he was raised on farms and knew that even basic preserving equipment could solve the problem and create a new resource: locally grown canned vegetables.

“Like most home cooks and gardeners, I overbuy, I overplant, and then the moment of reckoning comes,” he said.

Buying too much at the farmers’ market is the main reason Ms. Bone learned to can a decade ago. She loved good food, especially Italian food, and the preserving recipes that other canners used to win ribbons at county fairs just didn’t have the deep, complicated tastes she remembered from her father’s kitchen and visits to his family in Italy. Out of necessity, she began to develop her own safe recipes for canned foods she found useful, like pickled cauliflower and marinated artichokes.

“How much jam and dill pickles can a person get through?” Ms. Bone asked. Her book includes master recipes — for preserves like stewed onions with marjoram, lemony baby artichokes, and figs in brandy — and recipes for dishes that use them up. She is all about the churn of the kitchen, the movement of ingredients from the counter to the cupboard and freezer, back to the counter, to the table, and out. “It’s all part of the kitchen eco-system,” she said. “It all gets used in the end.”

She stepped away from a stovetop of boiling pots to arrange herself in a yoga pose. “In full peacock your elbows really dig into your stomach,” she said, balancing on her forearms. “Cooks like it because it keeps things moving through the intestinal tract.”

She doesn’t decorate her jars with calico, or stick charming labels on them, and is unconcerned about the color of her asparagus and the occasional overcooked batch of artichoke hearts.

“I’m not in it for the looks,” she said. “If it tastes good, I’ll eat it. If it doesn’t taste good, I’ll make it taste good.”

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