A Little Processing Pep Talk for Beginners: 3 Crappy Lessons Learned While Process my Own Food
The first time I canned anything, I set Brad and I up to be poisoned. (It was an accident officer, I swear). I didn’t know about how seals worked and I left turkey broth unsealed in our cabinets for MONTHS. Things grew in the jars. Liquid seeped into the cabinets. Liquid petrified into something else altogether. It was…bad. It scarred me for A WHILE and I didn’t can again for something like 4-5 years (not kidding!).
But since then, I’ve learned a LOT about processing food. Like… a shitload. I literally did a whole podcast season about it. And since my near-poisoning, I also have gotten back on the saddle. Aside from how not to die (which so far in life, I’ve been quite successful at), I had to learn three key lessons - that were largely all around managing my expectations of processing food.
Processing food is definitely as much art as it is science. Internalize this.
I have read so many different things about how to freeze food, how to can food. Dehydrating. Salting. Sugar. You name it. And every single one explains the science behind the process.
Which is a little funny when everyone tells you a different way to do things. Because of that science.
It can be frustrating AF when you’re a beginner. You will have no idea who to believe, or what can kill you, or why you thought this was a good idea in the first place. I can’t tell you how many times I thought “So this is why they decided to industrialize this, eh?” We humans like to think we know better than the factory guys. We do not.
What I’ve learned (aside from why people started buying into the whole lets-let-someone-else-do-this thing) is that you have to read the science, understand the point of the science, and then experiment a little bit inside of the science or the rules until you start seeing what works for you.
What do I mean by this?
You’ll read about the importance of processing food for the right length of time. You’ll have one lovely chap tell you that this time is 20 minutes, and the next, equally as lovely chap tell you it’s 25. Maybe the USDA tells you it’s 22 minutes. So you pick one–the one you trust the most (probs the USDA, guys). You process. You see if the food smells off or the seals pop when you go to use the food. You use all of your senses.
What do you not do? Process it for 5 minutes. That would be dumb. You know a basic range that hasn’t killed other people. Stick with that. And if the jars don’t seal or the food goes off, or something doesn’t seem right, you do a little more research and you adjust your aim next time.
It’s hard. You may cry. But once you do it enough and you’ll develop your own processes, and before you know it, you can do this half science, half art thing on instinct.
You will, at some point, HATE the texture of what you’re processing. You will need to work with this.
Everything about processing food really ends up revolving around how to get or maintain the best texture possible while also keeping the food preserved for a long time. Here is the deal: preserving food is the enemy of texture. Which 100% sucks if you’re a texture eater like I am. (fun fact: the reason I hate eggplant is PURELY a texture thing).
Take it from me: you will have texture disappointments when processing food. You will create a beautifully canned, artfully designed banana pepper MASTERPIECE, only to find that they disintegrate like the weird fuzz at the bottom of a powder drink mix. I’m sorry for the graphic description–but it’s true.
And it’s not just canning either. You will get midway through your winter, grab a frozen-while-fresh carrot, and realize it has the texture of a foam mattress pad, and you will know, deep in your heart, that you still have an entire bag of these that you have to either eat or waste, and that you will not get a re-do until next fall, only if (hopefully) your carrots will actually grow well this year.
This shit is heartbreaking. And, again, you will cry. And you will think that you should absolutely stop doing this because this world does not need one more opportunity to make you feel fully incapable.
But you should keep going.
This shit takes forever. Make systems and make time because there is no way to make it faster without potentially killing yourself by accident.
Gosh, I’m sorry for how many times I have referred to death in this article. If it makes you feel any better, I have not died yet via food processing (nor have I died from anything else for that matter. [This will be a lot less funny when someone reads this after I die. Sorry in advance.])
Here is the most important thing you should understand about food processing: It takes literally forever. We process food from spring through to fall every year purely so that we have food from November to March. And not even a lot of food. We still grocery shop. It some ways, it’s lunacy, but it also brings me an insane amount of joy when, in the depths of January, I can eat some applesauce that I made from apples that I grew from trees that are buried in snow. It is worth it.
But it does take time and you absolutely cannot make it go much faster. You must 1) mentally plan for this; 2) literally plan for this - like… don’t schedule things when you’re planning a canning day; and 3) systematize wherever you can so that, despite the time suck, the process feels sane and reasonable.
I’ve written about some of the ways I’ve created sanity in my canning life. I’ll add some additional thoughts on making it bearable here:
I have a knitting project or book in the kitchen with me so that I do not have to literally watch water boil. I keep this well away from the stick stuff and the counters–learned this little tidbit the hard way, my friends.
I wear good shoes the whole time. My feet die during the canning season.
I try to limit all other cooking by either eating foods that don’t require cooking (salads, etc.), using stuff from the freezer, cooking the day before and warming food up in the microwave, or even ordering out if we feel like it. The kitchen will be destroyed; sacrificing the home-cooked meal is entirely acceptable in such circumstances.
Final words.
I think the sustained processing of food may be a little bit like having a baby (says the lady without any babies). It is very hard. It hurts. But it is worth it.