Preserving fruits, berries and vegetables
"The astonishing fact about food preservation is that it permeated every culture at nearly every moment in time. To survive ancient man had to harness nature. In frozen climates he froze seal meat on the ice. In tropical climates he dried foods in the sun."
Food preservation is a significant part of food culture as most of the harvests spoils rather quickly, whether it's fruit, vegetables, animals or crops. Its earliest known practices in forms of drying dates back to around 12 000 B.C.E.. The common methods of food preservation are for example: canning, jam making, pickling, juicing, drying, fermenting, smoking, salting, etc.. I took a closer look into jam making and canning of local seasonal fruits. Fun fact: the largest Norwegian fruit growing area is located here in Western Norway with a main production of apples, plums, cherries, some pears and raspberry.
Blueberry Jam
Photo by Sarah
Coming at the peak point of summer allowed me to spot and harvest some remaining forest blueberries. Usually only found on the remote spots nowadays. That meant I had a side quest while doing a 7 hour hike to the Rotsethornet. I acquired over half a kilo of forest blueberries out of which I planned to make a jam as they are slightly sour. And because I prefer a jam that is less sweet and a bit sour I inspired myself with a recipe from Ivan that and adjusted it to my own needs;
Ingredients:
500g of blueberries
125g of sugar
35g of pektin
[Original recipe:
1. Grind 900 grams of washed blueberries in a fruit grinder and put in a pot.
2. Mix the contents of the Gelfix Klasik bag with two tablespoons of sugar and add to the fruit.
3. Cook thoroughly for about 1 minute, stirring constantly. Add the rest of the sugar, 100 g of blueberries mashed with a fork and cook for 5-10 minutes.
4. While still hot, fill into jars, close with a lid and turn upside down for 5 minutes.
5. Then wrap the jars in a blanket or towel for half a day.]
Kuki's version:
Photo by Colin
0. Prepare the jars. Wash them, put them into oven on 100*C. Put the lids along with the funnel into a boiling water.
1. Wash the blueberries and sort out all the leaves.
2. Put most of the blueberries in a pot but leave a handful for texture later.
3. Mash them with a potato masher until they are all bleeding the juice out. Turn the heat on.
4. Mix 30g of Jam Frukt-Pektin with 125g of sugar and stir it stressfully into the blueberries. Keep stirring and stirring.
5. Bring it to boil while stirring and add the remaining blueberries. Cook for 10 min on lower heat with a constant stir.
6. Take the jars out of the oven, fish out the funnel and pour the scalding hot jam into the jars, basically until the brim. Then run for the lids, fish them out of the water, try not to burn yourself while screwing the lid on and then turn the closed jars upside down and let the jam rest.
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| Photos by Kuki |
Canned plums
Next fruit that I harvested were plums from neighbor's garden. Actually, I picked them up from the street on my walk to the fjord. I thought of canning them as I love canned plums. Especially on Osuch which is a sour dough cake that I know from Slovakia. And because I was a little bit short on plums for the second jar I decided to add some blueberries and canned plum with blueberries. Since
was also making canned plums I got the sugar-water ratio from him and the followed a recipe from lydia.argilli.
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| Photos by Kuki |
How I proceeded:
0. Prepare the jars. Wash them, put them into oven on 100*C. Put the lids along with the funnel into a boiling water.
1. Wash the plums, unpity them and cut them into fourths.
2. To make the sirup use a 1:3 sugar to water ratio. Bring to boil while stirring and add cloves and cinamon.
2. Fill the jars up with the plums (and blueberries) using the funnel and pour over with the sirup until the brim.
3. Seal the jars of with the lid and then turn the jars upside down for couple of minutes.
4. To sterilise the canned fruits, place a cloth to the bottom of a big pot and fill with water to the height of 2/3 of the jar. Put the jars in and bring the water to about 85*C and keep the jars in for 20-30 min. Then take the jars out and turn them upside down on the lid again.
References:
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