Canned Goods: The Dilemma
So, with the strawberries I picked up in Asheville last week, I’ve made strawberry yogurt pops, strawberry infused vinegar, strawberry balsamic jam (post soon, I hope) and strawberry lemonade concentrate (again, post soon).
I canned the lemonade concentrate last night. Today, I am going to a BBQ at a friend’s house. Bringing a pint of the lemonade would be a nice idea. The problem? I can’t bring myself to do it.
Does anyone else have this issue? That they can’t bring themselves to open what they can until at least a month after they do it? Otherwise, what’s the point? I used a perfectly good canning lid on something I could have put in the refrigerator to use later. It’s actually a point of contention between my fiancee and I. I canned some really freaking good peach ginger preserves last October and found that she’d opened a jar to put some on her toast the next day.
Canning and preserving walks a fine line between wanting to enjoy something immediately (I almost always have leftovers that go in the refrigerator/freezer instead of the pot) and wanting to put something up for later. But when does later become relevant? I still have pints of preserved peppers I put up last October with no idea how and when I’m going to use them. If I don’t use the peaches I pickled last August now, when will I? They’re going to be past their use by date soon. Is it better to crack something open too early or wait until it’s too late and be sad about what might have been?
I put it to you, my fellow canvolutioners. How long do you wait to open something you’ve canned?
June 1st, 2010 at 7:16 am
I prefer to wait at least until the last of the tomatoes/peaches/greenbeans/beats or whatever from my Dad’s garden would have spoiled if left in the refridgerator. I send a week at their place canning and helping where I can, we eat fresh vegetables and fruits during that time. One day I’d like a garden of my own and storage space for all the beautiful jars of canned food I’ll have. Until then I’ll have to be satisfied with what I can do at my parents place.
June 7th, 2010 at 9:18 am
I think it’s obvious that it’s better to open it “too early” than to let it go to waste.
Honestly, you’re being over-the-top neurotic about this. It shouldn’t matter when you open something you canned. Yes, I can appreciate the whole “I just canned that…if I’d known you were gonna open it now, I’d have just put it in a regular jar and refrigerated it,” aspect. But for heaven’s sake, whether you open it a day later or eight months later, the point of canning food is to eat it, not let it sit on a shelf until it goes bad.
So…not gonna pull any punches on this one. “Is it better to use something too early or wait till it’s too late and be sad” is a stupid question. Of course it’s better to use something too early than not use it at all. Throwing food out because you let it go too long defeats the entire purpose of canning such that it’s THEN you should be asking yourself what’s the point. Plus, it’s wasteful and tossing out food is shameful. It’s ridiculous in the extreme to actually get UPSET over a canned item being opened “too early,” and if it really bothers you that much, I think you need to reconsider your priorities. Especially if you’d rather let food sit unused until it’s too old to BE used, than, HORROR OF HORRORS, open it too soon.