Speaker A:
Hello and welcome to Live Like the World Is Dying, your podcast for what feels like the end times. I’m your host, Margaret Killjoy, and this episode we’re going to be talking about food preservation and specifically canning and dried food storage and and some other things. This podcast is a proud member of the Channel Zero network of anarchist podcasts, and here’s a jingle from another show on the network.
Speaker B:
1-2-1-2, tune in for another episode of Marooncast. Marooncast is a down-to-earth Black radical podcast for the people. Our hosts, hip-hop anarchist Simile the RBG and sex educator and crochet artist KLC, share their reflections on Maroons, rebellions, womanism, life, culture, community, trap liberation, and everyday ratchetness. They deliver fresh commentary with a queer, transgender, non-conforming, fierce, funny, Southern girls, anti-imperialist, anti-oppression approach. Poly-add and bullshit. Check out episodes of Marooncast on Channel Zero Network, Buzzsprout, SoundCloud, Google, Apple, and Spotify. All power to the people, all pleasure to the people.
Speaker C:
Peace.
Speaker A:
Okay, if you could introduce yourself with your, your name, your pronouns, and then maybe, um, a little bit about your experience with, um, prepping. Like, I don’t know if you like work for any prepping podcasts that people might like, if you want to shout them out, but also your experience a little bit about what we’re going to be talking about today.
Speaker C:
Uh, yeah, my name is Cassandra. I use they or she pronouns. I don’t know, I’ve always been interested in foraging and gardening and preserving food, and I happen to work for this really cool prepping podcast called Live Like the World Is Dying.
Speaker A:
Um, Cassandra’s our transcriptionist, and we’ve been talking— I’ve, I’ve been bugging them more and more about food preservation, and finally I was like, can I just have you on the podcast and then you have to listen to the sound of your own voice as you transcribe it? And, uh, they said yes, which was nice of them. So, okay, so you— most of your experience in terms of food preservation is canning, is that right?
Speaker C:
Yeah, that’s— I think the 2 things that I do most are drying and canning, but I also do some fermenting and like salt preserving.
Speaker A:
Cool. Okay, well, let’s talk about all of it. Um, do you want to talk about the different methods of food preservation and which ones are appropriate for which foods? And what you like the most?
Speaker C:
Yes. I think there are 2 things that I think about when I’m deciding how to preserve something. And one is drying, for instance, is good for really long-term storage. And it’s also good because the food is lightweight, right? So it’s very portable. But in my day-to-day life, I’m much more likely to use canned food. So ease of use is another consideration when I’m deciding how to preserve something. And different food is best preserved in different ways, and that’s something we can talk about when we get into canning, especially a little bit later. Like acidity, how juicy something is, those things all come into play.
Speaker A:
Mm-hmm.
Speaker C:
Okay.
Speaker A:
Why preserve food? I mean, like, obviously you could just go to the supermarket and buy the food instead of canning it or preserving it in other ways. Like, like, I mean, that’s sort of— that part’s sort of a joke, but, but what is it that appeals to you about, uh, DIY preservation of food? Like, what got you into it?
Speaker C:
Um, I live in the Pacific Northwest, and there are certain times of year where food is really abundant and accessible, and it just at a certain point seems silly to me to not take advantage of that if I could, you know. So if I have access to, you know, dozens of pounds of green beans once a year, why not can it instead of going out and buying it in the winter?
Speaker A:
Okay, so, so what are the methods of preserving food? You’ve mentioned some of them, but is it possible that we, we could get a list of Just like what? There’s, there’s canning, salting, pickling, drying. What am I missing? Smoking, curing. Is that what you would call that?
Speaker C:
Yeah, I guess smoking and curing could— smoking is like a form of curing, I think. Uh, freezing. What else? Did we say fermenting already?
Speaker A:
No, we haven’t said that one yet.
Speaker C:
Fermenting.
Speaker A:
Okay, so should we just go through them and talk about each one’s great?
Speaker B:
Yes.
Speaker C:
Yeah, we can definitely do that. It’s hard to talk about them all at once because they’re all so different.
Speaker A:
Yeah. Well, so if possible, I mean, one of the things I’m really curious about is that when you look at green beans, you’re like, okay, green beans belong in a can. And then when you look at something else, you’re like, oh, that belongs fermented. Hops, obviously. What, um, is it just that different methods just work for different foods? If you like are working with meats, you’re mostly interested in curing them or freezing them or something? Like, how does all this work? How do you decide?
Speaker C:
I decide based on what I like to eat most. So like which preservation method I’m most likely to use because I’m not interested in wasting food. And then also just like which is the most accessible to me. So for something like green beans, I don’t know, I guess you could dry them, but I don’t think that would taste particularly good.
Speaker A:
Mm-hmm.
Speaker C:
So I want to preserve them in a way that tastes really good, that I’m actually likely to use throughout the year. And then also space. I think space is a huge issue. So my pantry is only so large, so there are certain things that it’s It makes more sense for me to dry like nuts, right? I’m not gonna can walnuts, though I suppose you could. I’m just gonna dry them and store them in a bin.
Speaker A:
Does it just take up less space because there’s like fewer individual jars taking up space?
Speaker C:
Yeah, yeah, definitely.
Speaker A:
What, um, what’s like the easiest to get into and/or what’s cheapest?
Speaker C:
Probably drying. I— well, hmm, drying probably, or salt curing, because All you need to salt preserve something is salt.
Speaker A:
Okay.
Speaker C:
But drying as well, you can sun dry or you can create some trays for yourself and some airflow. You don’t need a particular tool to dry something effectively.
Speaker A:
Okay. You said that drying tends to make things last longest. What’s the scale there? Okay. So like, cuz you were saying how, okay, so you were saying how it’s, it’s hard to talk about all of them at once because each one has like all these different pros and cons. So I’m trying to like get you to talk about the—
Speaker C:
Right, right.
Speaker A:
The pros and cons of different ones. Um, but so like, uh, what’s the, like, uh, you know, hierarchy of how long food can last? Like, like I know, for example, in my own limited research into this, I’m like, oh, I can store dried beans, dried rice, et cetera, for like 30 years.
Speaker C:
Right. Yeah.
Speaker A:
Um, but I’m under the impression that canning has a shorter shelf life than that. And in my head, of course, like it would be like freezing is a long shelf life as long as you have electricity.
Speaker B:
Mm-hmm.
Speaker A:
And then like cured food is like maybe not as long, but this might be my, like my, my weird, like obviously like storing meat isn’t as good or something, you know, my, my own, um, non-meat-eating bias, uh, which I will attempt to not bring into this particular episode of the show because everyone’s going to make up their own minds about what they want to eat. Um, but so what, what, um, so if drying lasts longest, what, what lasts least long, and what, where is everything else in the middle?
Speaker C:
Um, yes, I don’t even know if drying lasts longest, honestly, because you hear about like fermented or cured eggs that are found that are you know, hundreds of years old and stuff like that. Like kimchi, like jars of kimchi that are still good after hundreds of years. So, so, okay. Yeah, yeah. So, you know, fermenting can be very long-lived as well. But, um, but yeah, drying, as long as the thing stays dry and, and like bugs and mice don’t get to it, as long as it’s properly sealed, that’s probably the longest, longest term. And then the shortest, what would be the shortest? I think it’s probably either canned or frozen. Like, food can be frozen for a long time— sorry, food can be frozen for a long time, but like, it starts to taste like freezer at a certain point. So that’s not— that’s like my least favorite method personally.
Speaker A:
What does that mean? Is that like— I’ve heard that like if you store things in the freezer for a long time, it starts to like take on the taste of everything around it, or is there like a specific like just like as the cell walls burst of frozenness and whatever. I don’t know anything about the science of any of this. This is—
Speaker C:
I don’t know about the science of freezing. I’m not sure. I just know that like, you know, if I, if I lose a bag of green beans in the back of the freezer, a year and a half later, the green beans don’t really taste like green beans anymore. They kind of taste like freezer.
Speaker A:
Okay.
Speaker C:
Which is gross. I don’t want freezer beans. I’m also very anti-freezer just because we had, um, We had a, I guess, a climate event here in February that knocked out power at my house for about 10 days. And so everything in the fridge and the freezer was compromised.
Speaker A:
Yeah.
Speaker C:
And it sucked. And I lost a lot of food and it was very stressful. But all of my canned goods and all of my dried goods were perfectly fine.
Speaker A:
That’s a really important point. Yeah, I know. That’s like, like classic prepper style is to have the deep freeze in your garage full of like You know, ideally some deer or something like that. But it always seems like it just requires so much electricity to maintain.
Speaker C:
Yeah. And if— yeah, it’s also— I mean, I think when we’re talking about preparing for disasters, there’s the preparing in place versus preparing to move. And so something like freezing makes sense for preparing in place. But— and canning as well. But if you’re preparing to move, then something like dried or cured makes more sense.
Speaker A:
Yeah.
Speaker C:
But even with freezing, like when our power was out, I didn’t thaw out frozen food and try to cook it over my wood stove. You know, it was much easier for me to just like open a can of soup that I had canned from the year before and warm it up. So even if I’m thinking about Preparing in place, things like that make more sense to me.
Speaker A:
Yeah, no, such a— being in place versus going. I don’t really have anything deep to say about that. I just, I think about that a lot. And yeah, there’s a reason that all the like food you put in your like go bag is usually, you know, dried backpacker meals where you add water or whatever, you know.
Speaker C:
Yeah, which is good in an emergency, but it’s not super sustainable.
Speaker A:
So yeah. At the beginning of the COVID crisis when I was like alone all the time and I didn’t know what was happening, so I just didn’t go into town and I just like ate through my— ate through my own food stores, you know. I definitely was very reliant on, on canned goods, canned soups in particular. Um, and then also like when I lived out of a backpack and traveled, I did rely on cans then, but I relied on cans like You know, I’d only carry 2 or 3 or something like cans of chili or something. This wasn’t DIY canning. This was, you know, Amy’s chili.
Speaker C:
Right. And that’s the other thing too, is like Amy’s chili in a tin can is, um, it’s heavier than dried food, but it’s, it’s sturdy. But I’m not gonna like put glass jars of food in a go bag, right?
Speaker A:
Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker C:
Like a catastrophe waiting to happen.
Speaker A:
I learned the hard way that like several times I tried when I lived out of a backpack, I always like wanted to travel with like this jar of almond butter, but it was glass. Or for a while I decided I was going to be that asshole who lived out of a backpack and had a brandy snifter. Um, and when I say for a while, I mean like 24 hours.
Speaker C:
Till it broke.
Speaker A:
Yeah, yeah. Um, the jar of almond butter didn’t last as long as that, and that was a little bit more of a desperate bad thing because when I dropped it, I was like, that’s all the calories that I have on me.
Speaker C:
Oh God, yeah.
Speaker A:
Um, and I, I genuinely don’t remember. I remember looking at it and staring at it and being like, do I pull out shards of glass or do I just not eat?
Speaker C:
Oh God.
Speaker A:
Yeah, just I don’t remember which one I picked.
Speaker C:
Oh no!
Speaker A:
I’m alive, so I probably picked not eating. All the better. Okay, so that’s a good point. So is it possible to can in non-glass jars? Like okay, in my head, like canning requires mason jars, which people buy in bulk, and they’re like not crazy cheap. But I haven’t looked in a long time.
Speaker C:
I know that. Um, historically people have used tin cans, but maybe this is a conversation we could get into right now. But, um, like modern food safety guidelines, everything I’ve read is, is glass jars. But the good news is once you purchase the jar, this isn’t, this isn’t prepping like, you know, storing something away for 30 years and, and like stocking in bulk.
Speaker A:
Mm-hmm.
Speaker C:
This is like something that you do yearly and you’re rotating through your food. So you you’re reusing your supplies.
Speaker A:
Okay. Yeah, which actually probably— and now I’m just purely conjecturing— is like a, a better way to do any kind of prepping anyways. Like, it’s like reminding yourself that it’s very rarely for the long haul. It’s usually for situations like what you had happen where, you know, you lost power for 10 days.
Speaker C:
I mean, even just part of your daily life. Like, I’m— the, the main purpose of me doing things like canning and saving dry food is to eat throughout the year, not to prepare for a disaster. But, you know, when there is a disaster, I’m already prepared. So, because it’s just part of my daily life.
Speaker A:
Well, I guess that’s like the yearly cycle that— I mean, I grew up completely alienated from, you know, I ate the same things every season of the year, but that’s not really the The way that humanity evolved.
Speaker C:
Yeah. I mean, the nice thing about preserving food is that you don’t have to eat the same things because you’ve preserved them for a different season. But it is cyclical because, like, right now it’s green bean season, so my weekends are canning green beans or tomatoes. And in a few months it’ll be nut season, so that’s what I’m focusing on. But it gives me what I need for the rest of the year.
Speaker A:
Okay, so I’m gonna try and make this a pun, but it’s not gonna work very well. Let’s get into the nuts and bolts, but there’s no bolts in food, um, of this. And, uh, let’s talk about canning. Let’s talk about like, how do you get started canning? What is canning? Like, you know, I mean, if clearly it’s not just the can of Amy’s chili, it’s something else.
Speaker C:
Yeah. Um, so canning is preserving food in a glass jar. in liquid. And you’re doing that by using heat and pressure to cook the food inside of it. Like, you’re raising it to a particular temperature to destroy microbes and bacteria and things like that. And then it’s also creating a vacuum seal, and that’s what makes it shelf-stable.
Speaker A:
Okay, how do you do it?
Speaker C:
Hooray for shelf-stable food. Um, there are different ways. So, um, Let’s see. I think maybe I want to give my food safety spiel first before—
Speaker A:
Yeah.
Speaker C:
Okay, cool.
Speaker A:
That seems smart.
Speaker C:
Yeah. So I worked in the food industry for a long time and I feel really comfortable with food safety. But I think that it’s wise if someone doesn’t feel comfortable with food safety to do some research or learn from someone or take a class or something because Botulism is fatal. However, canning is really safe if it’s done properly. And so as long as you understand what properly means, you’re going to be fine. And then the anecdote I like to give is that, let’s see, my grandpa’s mom, when I was learning to can, I was really nervous about food safety. And my grandpa was like, don’t worry about it because his mom used to can everything they ate in a 2-tiered steam canner, which is just like outlandish. And she would do it, um, on a wood stove, so like manually regulating the heat. And she would can everything from like meat to vegetables to fruit, which we’ll, we’ll learn in a second why that’s absolutely insane. Um, and, and, you know, she had 18 kids and none of them died of botulism, so That’s—
Speaker A:
I mean, by that number, one of them would have died of botulism, right? Even if someone— anyway, yeah.
Speaker C:
So I, so I’m not saying like not to be safe, but just to know that like statistically you’ll be okay, especially if you do what you’re supposed to do.
Speaker A:
So, okay, so, so take the warning seriously is what you’re—
Speaker C:
Yeah, I think It was important for me to hear that, like, no, really, you’re going to be okay. Because if you look at, like, the USDA website or the, like, national— what’s it called? National Center for Home Food Preservation website. I swear it’s like every other paragraph they’re trying to scare you about botulism. Anyway, it feels like every other paragraph they’re trying to warn you about botulism, and it feels really, like, anxiety-inducing. So it’s something to be aware of, but not to be afraid of, if that makes sense.
Speaker A:
What is botulism, actually? Do you know?
Speaker C:
Um, let’s see. I think it’s, it’s a bacteria that produces a toxin that is fatal. And the reason it’s so scary is because most food spoilage you can see or smell, but botulism you can’t.
Speaker A:
Okay.
Speaker C:
Um, and it can even be fatal just with like skin contact.
Speaker A:
Oh, wow.
Speaker C:
Yeah, so it’s, it’s very scary, but it, um, I don’t know, I don’t want to terrify people.
Speaker A:
Well, how do you, how do you not make it? I was reading something that’s like has something to do with like whether or not there’s oxygen or something.
Speaker C:
Yep, yep. So botulism grows in an anaerobic environment, which means no oxygen.
Speaker A:
Mm-hmm.
Speaker C:
I think that’s correct.
Speaker B:
I—
Speaker C:
so I learned from my grandma. That’s the other part of the disclaimer. So the science is not something that I know a ton about, which is fine. But the point is that if you, if you follow proper, like, sterilization and follow recipes that are approved, you’ll be fine. So you’ve asked like 3 times what canning is and how to do it, so maybe— Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, so, um, there are 2 different— well, there are 3 different types of canners, um, and they’re used for different acidities. So the acidity of a food is important because the microorganisms in acidic food are, are killed at a lower temperature than non-acidic food. So for acidic food, and that means like fruits pickled things that have like a vinegar brine, those are canned in a water bath canner or a steam canner. And then non-acidic foods like vegetables, meats, things like that are canned in a pressure canner because it helps them get to a higher heat.
Speaker A:
Um, where are tomatoes falling in this? Are they acidic or are they—
Speaker C:
So tomatoes are tricky because you— they’re right on the edge of acidic and non-acidic. So So if you add an acid to them, like lemon juice or citric acid, you can can them as if they’re acidic. But if you don’t, you have to put them in a pressure canner. And for a long time, whoever regulates canning shit said that steam canning was not safe.
Speaker B:
Okay.
Speaker C:
But recently, I think it was Wisconsin University, some school in Wisconsin did a study and found that it is safe, which is great because I prefer it to water bath canning, and it’s how I learned to can.
Speaker A:
And it also— I mean, was this— was the test subjects just all 18 of your great-grandmother’s children, or—
Speaker C:
Right.
Speaker A:
Because I think that’s a large enough sample size.
Speaker C:
I think so too. They also used a wood stove. Um, no, so, so, so the difference between water bath canning and steam canning is, um, water bath canning, you’re just taking a big-ass pot and you’re submerging your jars in water, and that’s what creates heat and the pressure and the vacuum seal. Um, but it’s really unwieldy because you’re having to like deal with a big-ass pot of boiling water.
Speaker A:
Mm-hmm.
Speaker C:
So steam canning is creating the same effect but just with steam, so the amount of water you need is much smaller. So that’s how I learned, and that’s what I prefer. It’s very quick. And then pressure canning takes a special tool called a pressure canner.
Speaker A:
You can’t just put it in a pressure cooker?
Speaker C:
No, but you can use your pressure canner for pressure cooking, if that makes sense.
Speaker A:
Okay, okay.
Speaker C:
But pressure canners have, um, there are 2 different types, and, and don’t ask me to explain the difference in detail because I won’t be able to, but there’s a weighted gauge canner and a dial gauge canner, um, and I believe what I use is a dial gauge. So it has the special gauge on top that tells you how much pressure you’re creating within the canner.
Speaker A:
So it’s the basic idea that all this food goes into a jar, the lid goes on the jar, and then you’re trying to create enough pressure and heat to both cook the food and seal it. How does it seal it? Like, is it like creating like a, a pressure difference inside and outside that’s like sucking the lid down onto it, or—
Speaker C:
Mm-hmm. Yeah, yep, that’s my understanding. And it, it gets, um, sciency, especially with pressure canning, because altitude impacts—
Speaker A:
Of course it does.
Speaker C:
Um, that’s easy, the pressure and canning time. But that’s why— so that’s one of the benefits of following— let’s, let’s talk about this actually. This will be useful. So, um, what makes a good canning recipe? Because it’s important to follow good, good canning recipes. Um, and they’ll include things like how to make sure your food is acidic enough. Um, they’ll include a chart based on altitude telling you what pressure you need and also how long to can things. They’ll tell you how and whether that changes depending on your jar size. So they’ll outline everything like that in the recipe. So it’s not like an equation you have to figure out every time you can a thing unless you’re changing altitude constantly, which would be, I don’t know, adventurous.
Speaker A:
Would you say it would be jarring?
Speaker C:
Yes. Yes, it would be jarring.
Speaker A:
Okay.
Speaker C:
But yeah, once you know your altitude, it’s very easy. And there are like companies like Bell Jars put out entire books full of charts and recipes and things like that. Okay.
Speaker A:
Is there something special about like— like, I’ve never canned anything, but at various points I’ve looked up how to do basically everything.
Speaker B:
Mm-hmm.
Speaker A:
And I remember when I was looking up canning a long time ago, I think I got shy. I think I got scared away by, by the botulism thing, honestly.
Speaker B:
Right.
Speaker A:
And it was like something about like if you use the spatula, you use like a rubber spatula when you put the food in the jar, and if you don’t do it right, then you like murder everyone you know.
Speaker C:
Yeah, so there, there’s some basic safety considerations. So maybe let’s like pretend we’re canning something.
Speaker A:
Okay, is it green beans?
Speaker C:
Yeah, let’s can some green beans and we’ll walk through the steps. So, so we’re just canning plain green beans, which means they’re not acidic, so we’re doing them in a pressure canner. Um, so first you prep your food. So if we’re prepping green beans, that means I’m snapping all the ends off and I’m washing them and I’m, you know, I’m making sure none of them are like moldy or anything like that. Um, and then I’m getting a pot going to prep my jars and my lids. The thing about jars is that they’re glass, and the thing about glass is that if you put a hot thing into a cold glass thing, the glass thing will shatter, right?
Speaker A:
Yeah. So which is why you don’t drink coffee out of mason jars. Well, people do, but Why? I’ve seen it break.
Speaker C:
But then they make the ones with the handles as if you’re supposed to, you know?
Speaker A:
Yeah, that’s a good point.
Speaker C:
Yeah, that’s sketchy. Anyway, so, so sterilizing your jars and heating them up is sort of all done in the same step. You just toss everything in a big pot and put water in it, and you boil it for 10 minutes.
Speaker A:
Um, okay, and that’s not the pressure canner, that’s just a pot of water on the stove?
Speaker C:
Yep. And, you know, if you were to read like a canning website or something, they— people have all different methods for heating up and sterilizing their jars. I just think that that’s, that’s like the quickest and the thing that I do because I know they’re both warm and sterile. Um, so we’re doing green beans. So let’s see, what I’m going to do next is take the jars out of the sterilized water. And I’m going to pack them full of these green beans. Um, so we’re putting all of our green beans in a jar, and we’re doing something called raw packing, which means that the green beans are raw when I put them in the jar as opposed to cooked.
Speaker A:
Okay.
Speaker C:
And different recipes will tell you, you know, what you should be doing. And then I pour warm liquid over them. In this case, it’s just water, um, because if There are air gaps in the jar. That means that there’s a chance air will get trapped, which, you know, botulism and spoilage and things like that. But it also means there’s a chance that the jars won’t seal properly.
Speaker A:
Okay.
Speaker C:
Recipes use something called headspace. So you— your recipe will specify how much headspace to leave in the jar, and that means the space between the top of your food and liquid and the top of the jar. And so they’ve timed their recipe based on the headspace. So, okay, if the recipe says a half-inch headspace but I, I leave, you know, an inch and a half, it probably won’t seal because it’s not in the canner long enough to like vacuum all of that air out. Does that make sense?
Speaker A:
Yeah, and then you murder everyone you know.
Speaker C:
No, hopefully they just won’t seal and you try again. Um, Botulism comes after the jar has sealed, and that’s when things go poorly. Okay. Yeah. So anyway, so we’ve got our beans and our liquid in a jar. We wipe the rims of the jar because that’s where the seal happens. So we want to make sure there’s nothing like impeding that.
Speaker A:
Okay. Oh, like a little piece of dirt or something that would keep it from— or like a green bean stem.
Speaker C:
Yes, exactly. Um, for things that are like chunkier, that’s when your, your spatula technique comes in.
Speaker B:
Okay.
Speaker C:
Because you want to make sure there’s— there aren’t any air pockets. Then you put your lids and your rings on, and then everything’s really hot, so you make sure you use gloves and, and appropriate tools and load everything into your pressure canner with— I don’t know, I think it’s an inch of water. It depends on your canner. And then you seal it up and you start, start your canning.
Speaker A:
Are those like electric systems or are they like stovetop?
Speaker C:
Stovetop. I’ve never seen an electric one, but I wouldn’t be shocked if that existed.
Speaker A:
No, I just didn’t— I, I’ve never seen one of these things, so I, I struggle to visualize it. Okay, so it’s, it’s in the pressure canner and we start, and then you leave it for some length of time that is specified in the recipe.
Speaker C:
Yep, yep. And, you know, different canners come with specific instructions to make sure that your weight is correct and your pressure is correct and things like that. So I won’t, like, try to detail that out because it depends on the tool you’re using. But assuming your, your weight and your pressure are correct, then you just set your timer once it’s up to pressure and leave it in.
Speaker A:
Okay. Is this like— are they usually like around an hour? Is this like 3 days or what’s going on?
Speaker C:
It depends on the food and how acidic it is. So, um, something like meat takes— let’s see, like the, the bone broth recipe I use, the canning recipe, takes like an hour and a half in the pressure canner. Um, but something like tomato sauce takes 15 minutes.
Speaker A:
Oh, because it’s so acidic.
Speaker C:
Mm-hmm. Yep.
Speaker A:
Okay, cool.
Speaker C:
So then, you know, that means that like on tomato day I can get through a bunch of batches, but on broth canning day I can’t.
Speaker A:
So yeah, what about tomato bone broth canning? Never mind. Okay, um, go ahead.
Speaker C:
The lesson is not to, not to combine recipes. That’s— yeah.
Speaker A:
See, I think that this is like, I, you know, I’ve never been like a baker. Uh, I’ve technically baked things, but I’m not very good at following directions specifically. My mom isn’t any good at this either. I hope my mom doesn’t— I had no idea if my mom listens to the podcast. Um, you know, it’s like, like I’ll start a recipe and then somewhere along the way, maybe halfway, three-quarters of the way through, I’m just going to do something different. Um, I, I don’t know why. And, and so I’ve always been a terrible baker. So maybe canning isn’t the food preservation method that I’m specifically going to get into.
Speaker C:
I’m the same way though.
Speaker A:
Okay, okay.
Speaker C:
And here, here’s the thing. So like, with— there are so many fancy canning recipes, like bourbon peach preserves, and you know, like people get ridiculously fancy, and those are never the recipes I use because I would be tempted to experiment. So when I personally— when I’m canning, I’m just canning like the most basic ingredients so that that would be when it— like plain, just in water. I don’t even use salt. So when it’s time for me to cook later in the year, I can experiment because I have, you know— I love it. I haven’t like made all of my beans into different like fancy bean recipes already. They’re just plain beans. I don’t know if that makes sense, but—
Speaker A:
No, no, no, that makes sense. Okay. I think you’ve sold me on canning. This is, I mean, clearly your job is to sell me on each of these things one after the other.
Speaker C:
Yeah.
Speaker A:
Okay. So canning is good for something that you’re going to cycle through at home. And so that’s something that you grow or get access to at one time of year so you can have access to it at another time of year. And you said you can also like can soups. Is this like the next level up of like the classic bachelor thing where you, um, uh, make a whole bunch of soup on Sunday and put it in the freezer and then just like eat that soup all week?
Speaker C:
I mean, I do that. So I That soup is why I can, because my kid loves soup and that’s just like what we eat during the winter. So I’ll get off work and forget to have planned anything, so I’ll just open a jar of broth and a jar of stew meat and a jar of potato, you know, I just throw it all into a pot. Um, but that’s like 7 quarts of food into a single pot. So, so I think I’m doing both. Ah, okay. Right.
Speaker A:
Yeah.
Speaker C:
So then we have soup for a week, but it’s from Pre-canned food.
Speaker A:
I really wish I was on my puns and jokes better today, but somewhere there’s a soup for our family joke in here. Hopefully, someone will just tell it to me later on Twitter in a way that is either very charming or very annoying.
Speaker C:
You’ll have to send it to me. Okay.
Speaker A:
So that kind of covers canning. Now, everyone who’s listened is capable of making up their own recipes. And, um, so let’s move on from there to, uh, what’s, what’s next? What do you like the most after canning?
Speaker C:
Drying. Drying food.
Speaker A:
Drying.
Speaker C:
Okay. What do you want to know about drying, Margaret?
Speaker A:
Well, I mean, okay, so like, I feel like there’s 2 parts to it, and maybe I’m totally wrong about this, but there’s both the like drying of the food and then the storing of the dried food.
Speaker C:
Is that And then the preparing of the dried food.
Speaker A:
Oh yeah, no, cooking is totally beyond anything.
Speaker C:
It’s not like a can where you can just open it and heat it up.
Speaker A:
Oh yeah, you’re right. Yeah, I mean, it’s like, oh, so that means I should probably just make canned beans when I— I’ve always felt like a terrible prepper because I’m like, I have all these like dried beans and I’m like, I hate soaking beans. I definitely just eat canned beans.
Speaker C:
See, that’s why, that’s why I do both. So I get my like 50-pound bags of black beans, right? And I keep them in 5-gallon buckets, but then I rotate through them. So I will can large batches of them. So I’m only having to think about soaking them once, right? And then they’re canned and then I buy more dry beans to replace the ones I used. And then I have like, does that make sense?
Speaker A:
Yeah. So you can soaked beans, not dried beans, right?
Speaker C:
Yeah, well, they’re dried and then you soak them. So, and it’s actually going through the soaking process and then, uh, pressure cooking essentially makes them more digestible. So I don’t know, it’s my favorite.
Speaker A:
Okay. Yeah. Because like, it’s like one of the reasons I’ve given— I’ve— it’s really— I mean, people have probably noticed that I haven’t done a lot of episodes about food, and, and it’s not because I like think that like this other stuff is cooler. It’s because like food growing, preservation, and preparation intimidate the hell out of me. And I’m convinced that I can’t grow anything because I said this in one of the last episodes because I tried to plant a pine tree when I was a kid and I failed or whatever.
Speaker C:
Right.
Speaker A:
And I’m really excited to get to talk about this basically, even though it’s very embarrassing that I’m like, in my mind I’m like, oh yeah, when you soak beans overnight, you soak them forever and they always end up still just a little bit Well, because you still have to cook them. Well, yeah, but, uh, and then the pressure cooker being the, the way to—
Speaker C:
okay. But we, we were talking about drying food.
Speaker A:
Yes, right. Okay, so yeah, so okay, so there’s 3 different parts to it. There’s the drying of the food, the storing of the dried food, and the, uh, the preparation of the dried food. Let’s not too much get into the preparation of the dried food today, uh, but let’s talk about the, like, the drying and the storing. And I’m really excited about the storing because it’s the only thing that I’ve like done any of at all and done some research about.
Speaker C:
Um, so yeah, you probably know much more than me about the storage, but only in that I took a lot of notes like last week. Oh, good.
Speaker A:
Um, but okay, how do you dry food?
Speaker C:
Um, so I use just a really cheap food dehydrator, like the cheapest one I could find on Amazon. They’re really fancy dehydrators you can get. You don’t have to buy a dehydrator at all. You can just, you know, set things out on trays and rotate them and like put a fan near them so there’s airflow.
Speaker A:
When you say set things out, you mean like in the sun?
Speaker C:
I guess if you want it sun-dried, but I, in general, if I’m preserving food, I try to keep it out of sunlight. Oh, okay.
Speaker A:
That makes sense.
Speaker C:
That’s maybe— we didn’t talk about canning and how long things are shelf-stable, but Generally, if food is exposed to sunlight, it affects its shelf stability. So, okay. Um, but yeah, airflow is the— temperature and airflow are the major factors for drying food. So especially if something’s very juicy, you want it to be, um, lower temperature with lots of airflow, because if the outside of it dries before the inside, it’s bad news.
Speaker A:
Mm-hmm.
Speaker C:
I guess it can cause mold for whatever’s on the inside if it doesn’t fully dry. But if it does fully dry, it means that, like, say you’re, you’re drying cranberries or something, um, they’re rock hard instead of that, like, nice tender dry dryness.
Speaker A:
Okay.
Speaker C:
I can speak. Um, so yeah, uh, most dehydrators will come with, like, settings for different types of food, and you can look those up online as well, like which foods need more, more heat, which food— foods want less heat.
Speaker A:
Um, how much does humidity affect this? Like, I, I— where I live, it’s basically I live inside a cloud. All of the south is just a cloud. Yeah, all of the summer. And so like, I can’t even dry clothes on the line unless they’re in the direct sunlight. So I assume I would have to use it. I would have to use one of these, like, what are they, electric? The ones that you’re talking about?
Speaker C:
Yeah, I imagine so. I live in a not humid place, so I haven’t had to think about that. Also storage. I imagine that you probably have more trouble with food storage.
Speaker A:
I do.
Speaker C:
Yeah.
Speaker A:
It’s fun.
Speaker C:
But then there are things that are apparently great if you have a higher humidity, like What I’m sure you’re super interested in, salt curing meat is apparently a higher humidity is better. So—
Speaker A:
Oh, really?
Speaker C:
There’s that.
Speaker A:
I wonder what else I can salt cure.
Speaker C:
Right.
Speaker A:
Just slabs of seitan.
Speaker C:
It sounds terrible.
Speaker A:
Okay, please continue.
Speaker C:
The things that I mostly dry are nuts. And seeds because I grow a lot of sunflowers and also I live in the Pacific Northwest, so it’s like filbert and walnut territory, acorn territory.
Speaker A:
Do you have to prepare— the only one of these things I know anything about is acorns, and I know that you have to do a lot of work to get the tannins out of acorns. You do that before you dry them in this case?
Speaker C:
You know, I’ve actually heard, and, and I’m planning to try this this year, Um, but I’ve heard that it’s actually quicker to get the tannins out if you dry them first, because then when you introduce water to flush the tannins out, it can like fully saturate the nut meat. Okay. Does that make sense? So you’re getting rid of all the moisture first, and then when you introduce fresh water to the nuts, it, it can penetrate into the like flesh. Okay.
Speaker A:
‘Cause yeah, it takes forever to flush acorns.
Speaker C:
It does. I mean, you have a stream, so that would be much, much less time intensive. For folks who don’t know, acorns are delicious, but only if they’re not full of tannins.
Speaker A:
Which is like, what, a natural preservative or something that’s in them that in order to be human edible, you have to get rid of?
Speaker C:
Yeah. I mean, there are tannins in lots of food. It’s the thing that makes Sour food sour, or like astringent food astringent. But, um, you know, the, the amount that’s in the average acorn can give you a tummy ache. So.
Speaker A:
Okay. So is this like, is this one of the ways that you would, because I, I assume basically all the nuts I eat in my life are like dried nuts, right? ‘Cause I’m not going around eating fresh nuts.
Speaker C:
Mm-hmm.
Speaker A:
Um, so this is like one of the main ways if you wanted to make the nuts that you grow taste like the nuts people are used to eating, you would dry them first in this way, right?
Speaker C:
Like acorns or just—
Speaker A:
Oh, sorry, I was going back to like, um, you know, the other, the other nuts.
Speaker C:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Cashews.
Speaker A:
I don’t know, you didn’t say cashews. I was just thinking about cashews because I like cashews.
Speaker C:
I think cashews are actually way different. Have you seen a cashew plant?
Speaker A:
Uh, all of the nuts look really weird in the wild. I struggle to understand them.
Speaker C:
I think—
Speaker A:
This is the most embarrassing episode I’ll ever put out. It’s just like, I’m this crazy person who lives in the woods and I don’t know anything about plants.
Speaker C:
Because cashew is part of a fruit, right? It’s not like in a hard shell like a walnut. Anyway, let’s not talk about cashews.
Speaker A:
Okay, let’s not talk about cashews. I’ll pretend like I know what filberts are and talk about them.
Speaker C:
A filbert is, is just— I think it’s actually a different species than a hazelnut, but it’s what we call hazelnuts here.
Speaker A:
Oh, okay, cool.
Speaker C:
Yeah, so like filberts and walnuts, things that have a hard shell that you crack the shell open and then the nut— you can eat it fresh, it’s delicious fresh, but if you want to store it, you just dry it.
Speaker A:
Okay.
Speaker C:
Um, and some nuts you dry in the shell, like walnuts, but, um, some you don’t have to.
Speaker A:
Okay. And so, so drying is like a little bit simpler. It’s like, yeah, if you’re drying walnuts, you look at the article that says this is how you dry walnuts, and you put them in your dryer and you dry them.
Speaker C:
I mean, I don’t even put nuts in a dryer because they’re already so dry.
Speaker A:
You just leave them out?
Speaker C:
Yeah, I just like, I put a blanket on the floor in front of my, um, fireplace in the winter and just have a like mound of nuts that I eat.
Speaker A:
Cool.
Speaker C:
Like, roasted. Um, so, but if you’re doing something that’s like, uh, quicker to spoil, I guess, like fruit or vegetables, then a dehydrator might be the solution for you.
Speaker A:
Okay.
Speaker C:
How long—
Speaker A:
like, what are some of the advantages of drying food? I mean, obviously, like, certain foods like nuts and things, like, that’s like almost like the way that you, you store them, right? But it’s like I don’t know a ton about like dried fruits and fruits a bit, but like dried vegetables. And, you know, is this a— like, how long do they last? Like, why— what is good about this method?
Speaker C:
I think it’s good because it’s smaller, so it’s, it’s easier to store, right? Um, it’s also lighter, so that goes back to our conversation about, you know, preparing to be on the move as opposed to being stationary.
Speaker A:
Mm-hmm.
Speaker C:
For things that are snackable, it’s nice to have snacks. So like dried fruits, dried seeds, things like that. Um, I— there are a few vegetables that I routinely dry because I routinely use them. Garlic is one, I guess. Allium, can we call the allium family a vegetable? Um, garlic and onions are 2 of them because I don’t really can them. You could ferment them, especially fermented garlic is really popular. I just don’t do it. Um, but like the number of times I’ve gone to make soup in the winter and not had garlic or onions is embarrassing. Um, but if I have them dried, I can just toss in a handful and it’s delicious.
Speaker A:
Okay, but like, so if you dry— how long does dried fruit last? How long do dried vegetables last? Like, is it like good enough to last you Like most of these food preservation methods are sort of like meant to kind of get you until— set you up so that the next time, until the next harvest of the same thing. Is that kind of the journal idea? Like so that you have this thing that lasts like hopefully almost a year or—
Speaker C:
Oh, they can last. I mean, I have like dried onions, dried plums in my pantry that have been there for 2 years and are perfectly good. The thing about like everything other than canning is that if something goes bad, you can see it or smell it. So it’s good until it, you know, it’s good until you can see or smell that it isn’t good anymore. And, and that depends on, you know, how you’ve stored it. Do you put— is it in direct sunlight? Is it totally dry? Is it in a hot place, a cool place? Things like that. Um, but it lasts a long time. That’s a really big answer. I think you were looking for something more specific.
Speaker A:
I mean, it’s, it’s fine. We don’t have to have like a chart of, of an audio chart of like, you know, column A, the fruit, column B, how long it lasts with each different method.
Speaker C:
Okay.
Speaker A:
That’s not how you would organize the data anyway.
Speaker C:
It seems like there should be more to it, right? Like there should be more to talk about with dried food, but it’s so simple. You just—
Speaker A:
Yeah.
Speaker C:
But storage you wanted to talk about, and I feel like you probably know more about storage than I do.
Speaker A:
Well, only because like I came into this with this, I don’t know how to make food thing. Right.
Speaker C:
Mm-hmm.
Speaker A:
And, you know, I just remember a couple years ago, uh, a, a food scientist friend of mine was like, it was maybe like 4 or 5 years ago, was like, hey, I’m not saying it’s gonna happen, but the supply chain on food is looking a little bit precarious this year or whatever.
Speaker C:
Mm-hmm.
Speaker A:
So I was like, okay, I’m gonna just start having some like 5-gallon buckets of like beans and rice or around. And that was probably what started me on the journey that you’re all along for with me today. And, um, and so I just would go and buy, you know, basically prepper food, right? Uh, ideally the ones with like the least markup or whatever, but just, you know, 5-gallon buckets or huge cans of stuff that’s like freeze-dried or whatever, and it’s like meant to last. 30 to 50 years on a shelf.
Speaker C:
Mm-hmm.
Speaker A:
And, and so I was doing that. And, but then I realized as I started to kind of like scale this and more people are asking me for my recommendation, and I don’t wanna just be like, oh, go to Amazon. And because that’s the main place to buy Augustan Farms stuff.
Speaker B:
Yeah.
Speaker A:
You know, then go support this company I don’t know anything about. And instead realized I was like, well, there has to be a way to just like put rice in a 5-gallon bucket. And it’s like not quite as easy as that. You can, do that and that’ll last for a fairly long time. Again, depending on your conditions, especially humidity. Um, and sunlight, as you mentioned, and, uh, oxygen is actually one of the biggest ways that like long shelf life foods go bad.
Speaker C:
That’s right.
Speaker A:
And so the thing I’ve been researching and, and I’ll, I’ll probably make a YouTube video about in the next week or so is how to store dried goods, uh, In for like long-term storage, which is less the, like, I feel like in my head there’s like 2 tiers of food preser— um, of food storage.
Speaker C:
Mm-hmm.
Speaker A:
And there’s the more important one, which is what you’re talking about and the, like, the things that you can cycle through and to get you through any given interruption. And then there’s the sort of deep storage stuff where, I don’t know, I don’t see a reason for most people not to have like a month or 2 of food sitting in 5-gallon buckets in their basement. You know, that just sit there and you can pass them on to your kids and who will be like, really, why are you giving this to me? But actually, that’s very optimistic to think that they won’t immediately understand the need for such things.
Speaker C:
Right.
Speaker A:
And, uh, I like to imagine that we’ll be around 30 to 50 years from now. That seems optimistic, but I like it. So long-term food storage, you can make beans and rice and many other things last 30, 50 years. And the main way going at the moment— there’s a lot of different ways to do it, but basically it’s like the main way that people are doing right now in prepper world. And it’s mostly, I think, pioneered by the Mormons.
Speaker B:
Yeah.
Speaker A:
A lot of the information you can get about this. And if you live in Utah, apparently there are these stores where they’ll just sell you really cheap beans and rice and And, and some of them are open to people who aren’t in the church.
Speaker C:
Hmm.
Speaker A:
But you basically, you put them into Mylar bags, which are plastic bags with like an aluminum layer, which isn’t technically the definition of Mylar, but like when you say Mylar bag, it’s, it’s what you mean.
Speaker C:
Mm-hmm.
Speaker A:
And you heat seal the bags. You, you put in the dried food and then you put in oxygen absorbers.
Speaker B:
Mm-hmm.
Speaker A:
I always thought you put in desiccants because I think about humidity all of the time. The instruments that I built last year, some of ’em aren’t even playable right now because the, I don’t know. Warping because of the stupid humidity. I don’t understand how a mountain dulcimer was invented in Appalachia and then has such a thin soundboard. Anyway, um, so, so, but you don’t put in desiccants necessarily. Actually, in general you don’t, and it actually seems to be contraindicated. But instead you put in oxygen absorbers that are sized to the size of bag, and you got to do it kind of quick because obviously when you open up the oxygen absorber, starts absorbing oxygen. And what it is, like, little iron fillings that are absorbing, um, that are oxidizing and making rust, I think. And they’re in little sealed packets that air can go in but rust pellets can’t come out.
Speaker B:
Hmm.
Speaker A:
You drop it in, you heat seal the bag. You can either get like a little flash sealer for like $25, or you can use a household iron, or you can use a, um, a hair You know, it’s like, I have a feeling that people making these things don’t actually do this because I’ve seen people say straightening iron or curling iron. Um, but, um, you can seal it with heat.
Speaker C:
Mm-hmm.
Speaker A:
And then it is sealed and then that doesn’t keep like animals and stuff out. So then you put it in a bucket. So really long story short, you take a Mylar bag, at least 5 mil thick. Um, mil is not millimeter, it’s, I don’t know, 0.001. or something. I don’t remember, millionth of an inch or thousandth of an inch or something. You put in the oxygen absorber, you heat seal it, you put it in the bucket, and you’re good. And it seems kind of simple, and it’s a lot cheaper per 5-gallon bucket of beans and rice than going and getting the pre-made stuff.
Speaker C:
Yeah.
Speaker A:
But being able to do it with stuff that you dry yourself, again, like different things are going to last different lengths of time. And oh, and you can only do this with stuff that’s like, um, less than 10% water content. You know, it has to be like way more dried. It’s, you can’t just like put in your like dried fruit and stuff. It’s like almost all like rice and beans and oats and other things. Um, and then there’s like weird stuff where like brown rice is actually harder to preserve than white rice because brown rice has like, which is much better of course in general, has more stuff, like more oils in it that can go bad.
Speaker C:
Hmm.
Speaker A:
So that’s what I’ve learned, but you should correct me. That’s what you’re about to do.
Speaker C:
No, no, no. I, I was just gonna say I’ve heard of people, or I’ve seen something called dry canning. I haven’t actually tried it, um, but it’s something similar except you’re using jars and you’re using, um, an oven to, uh, yeah, create a seal, a hot seal on the jars.
Speaker A:
Um, okay.
Speaker C:
And it’s supposed to make dried food last longer. I’ve never personally understood the purpose of things like that just because I rotate So yeah, it’s just like a part of my life and, yeah, routine.
Speaker A:
But, um, yeah, just having some deep storage, you know, like— but okay, this actually makes me— why are mason jars clear? Because isn’t sunlight the enemy of like all food preservation?
Speaker C:
Yeah, I guess so. I have— I honestly have no idea. They make fancy like tinted jars, but they’re much more I imagine it’s just because it’s more expensive to make tinted glass.
Speaker A:
Oh, okay.
Speaker C:
But traditionally, you’re not keeping your jars on a shelf in direct sunlight. You’re keeping them in your basement or your root cellar or something like that.
Speaker A:
Okay. So, we’ve been talking almost an hour and obviously, there’s still several methods of food preservation left, but maybe we won’t go into the details about any of the other ones. And, let’s see, is there one more more that you want to like quick like shout out? Like, hey, great, look how great salting is, or pickling, or I don’t know.
Speaker C:
Yeah, I mean, fermenting and pickling is amazing, and that’s like an episode in and of itself. And I think that it’s really like trendy right now, so probably accessible for people to find information on. Um, and then salt preserving and, and sugar— I can’t eat sugar, so I don’t do sugar preserving, but those 2 methods are surprisingly simple and I’m just beginning to experiment with salt preserving, but I love it. So, I don’t know.
Speaker A:
Check it out. Is it just like you take the thing and you pack it in salt and then you’re like, it’s good?
Speaker C:
Kind of, yeah. Kind of, yeah.
Speaker A:
That’s cool.
Speaker C:
I mean, there’s more to it than that, but basically.
Speaker A:
Okay. Well, I don’t know. You’ve sold me on far more food preservation instead of just looking at it from this, like, you know, as much as I want to, like, try and sell you on deep storage, I think that that’s, like, the far and away least useful aspect and, like, the one that ties most into, like, the bunker mentality that I supposedly should talk all the time, you know. And so this, like, this, these methods of cycling through appeal quite a bit to me. Is there any Are there any like last thoughts on food preservation or anything else about any of this that you want to bring up?
Speaker C:
Just that once you start digging into it, you’ll probably be shocked by how many things you can can from, you know, butter to water.
Speaker A:
Wait, really?
Speaker C:
Like to whole chickens. So it’s pretty flexible and pretty fun once you get the basics Canned water.
Speaker A:
Oh, I’m laughing about the canned chicken because I’m imagining like the chicken like coming out and running away when you open up the can 15 years later. All right, well, well, thanks so much for, for coming on the podcast. And also, you know, thanks for helping make the show accessible. And I know I really appreciate that, and I appreciate all the work that you’ve done with that.
Speaker C:
You’re welcome. I’m dreading transcribing this, but I will do it.
Speaker A:
So I appreciate it. Thank you all so much for listening. I hope you got out of this as much as I did. I didn’t know anything. I mean, well, I didn’t know anything compared to what I now know, and I’m excited to eat green beans. I mean, prepare green beans. No, I’m mostly just excited to eat green beans. I really like green beans. I’m really glad that was the example food we used. If you like this episode or this podcast, you should tell people about it and tell people about it on the internet. Well, tell people about it in real life, but if you tell people about it on the internet, all the like weird algorithms will like make other people know about it. If you like and comment and subscribe and do all of the stuff. And you can also support me directly on Patreon. Uh, my Patreon is patreon.com/margaretkilljoy. And there’s a bunch of like zines and other things up there, and they’re behind a paywall. But if you live off of less money than we make off of the Patreon, then you should just message us and— or me, I guess— on any social media platform, and I will give you access to all the content for free. Because the main point is to put out content and really just appreciate everyone’s support who helps me do that. And in particular, I want to thank Sean and Hugh and Dana, Chelsea, Eleanor, Mike, Starro, Cat J, the Compound: Shane, Christopher, Sam, Natalie, Willow, Kirk, Hoss the dog, and Nora. And also, I would be remiss not to tell you that I have a book available for pre-order. Uh, AK Press is republishing a new edition of my book A Country of Ghosts, which is an anarchist utopian book. And if you’re listening to this podcast, you probably have like a vague idea of what I’m talking about when I talk about anarchy like that. But if you don’t, or if you do, you might like this book, A Country of Ghosts. And If you hate the government and capitalism, you might like it. And if you hate the government but like capitalism, or if you like capitalism but hate the government, then I would challenge you to read this book anyway, because you might learn that both of those are very interrelated things, and you’re kind of only doing it halfway. And you have to destroy the Ring of Power, and it must be— don’t be a Boromir. You should throw the Ring of Power into the, into the fires of Mount Doom. Anyway, you should tell me about the fun foods that you all prepare because I will be jealous, or I’ll start canning my own foods. And I’ll talk to you all soon.
