Preserve your sanity by preserving food

Canning is a hedge against uncertainty, an education in self-reliance, and a pocket of calm amid tumult.

- By J.D. Tuccille

While eating from cans is far from my preferred sustenance, putting my own food into them for later consumption is a different matter. Throughout 2020—a year we could have skipped—my family took to home-canning food even as we expanded a garden that we hope will provide us with more to store. It’s a means of armoring ourselves against a world that seems determined to throw every possible challenge our way and of turning our focus from insane headlines to comforting home activities.

For us, a big spur was the supply disruptions, when chicken, ground beef, canned goods, and other foods disappeared from markets and were rationed when available. We got in the habit of grabbing and storing goods as they appeared. But the chest freezer has limited capacity. And what do you do with a bonanza of apples for sale at 19 cents a pound?

One thing we could do with those apples, we remembered, was make apple butter and can it for future use. That is, if we could find the requisite materials.