Local NewsAugust 3, 2016
Commentary
Canning season is in full swing, and all fruits and vegetables — including the Blue Coco beans in the center — need to be preserved properly to avoid serious illness.
Canning season is in full swing, and all fruits and vegetables — including the Blue Coco beans in the center — need to be preserved properly to avoid serious illness.Tribune/Kyle Mills
Blue Coco beans have a beautiful purple pod when fresh off the vine. The heat of cooking turns them bright green.
Blue Coco beans have a beautiful purple pod when fresh off the vine. The heat of cooking turns them bright green.Tribune/Kyle Mills
Sandra L. Lee
Sandra L. Lee

Four beautiful quarts of freshly picked green beans down the drain. Literally.

It's hard displaying one's stupidity or carelessness in public, but here goes.

I was so proud of that first big picking of beans, Blue Cocos from seed I brought home from George Washington's home at Mount Vernon a couple of years ago. I bought a packet in the gift shop there, thinking $3 was cheap for any seed, let alone an heirloom from the garden of our first president. I understood when I got home and there were six small brown beans in the envelope.

Oh well, I planted them. They all grew and, in the spirit of George himself, I saved a handful each of the last two years to plant again.

Which brings me back to this picking.

I sauteed a few for lunch, enjoying watching the heat change the deep purple of the pods to a bright green. But there are more on the way, so I opted to can the rest.

That first batch of canned vegetables always takes longer because the pressure canner has to be pulled out of the shop, washed and the gasket checked. I use a pressure canner with weights instead of a gauge so there's no trip down to the county extension office to have it checked for accuracy.

The rest of the usual tools were already handy because the cherries ripened several weeks ago, 42 pints and two quarts worth on my shelves. So the bottomless cup that expedites filling jars, the jar lifter for taking them out of canners, new lids and old-but-clean rings were all in one place, ready to go.

I pulled out the Washington State University Extension directions - a canner's bible for safety, also available from the University of Idaho Extension - to double-check the times for pints vs. quarts and the pressure for more than 1,000 feet in elevation. I live in the Lewiston Orchards so it's barely over 1,000 feet, but having grown up in a time when botulism was an ever-present danger, there's no cutting corners, especially with green beans.

Know this: Botulism can survive, grow and produce toxin in a sealed jar. The food may smell fine and taste good, but even a taste can kill you.

I learned to can from my mother-in-law who did all her vegetables, including green beans and corn, in a water bath. That meant every batch of filled jars was boiled for four hours. Four full hours in a hot, steamy kitchen with no air conditioning. And when you opened a jar you were supposed to boil the contents to make sure any toxins were killed. It also killed a lot of the flavor, but you don't die from mushy beans or tough corn.

Back to this year. I followed all the instructions: sterile jars, new lids, a little salt, loaded the pressure canner, brought it to a boil, properly vented, set the timer ... and set a second timer for some squash in the microwave before starting on something else.

Almost before I knew it, the timer went off, I turned off the heat, moved the pressure cooker off the burner and let it start to depressurize. Even before the second timer went off, I realized what I had done.

There aren't too many safe choices if you under-process home-canned food. You can start over again within 24 hours, repeating the full processing time and the resultant loss of quality. You can put it in the refrigerator and use it all immediately, within three to four days at most. You can freeze the jars until you're ready to eat the contents. Or you can dump it down the drain.

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I kept what I could use in a couple of days and put the rest down the garbage disposal.

If you opt for freezing, said Judy Floch at the UI Extension office at Lewiston, make sure the jars are approved for freezer use. Recommendations from the "Fundamentals of Consumer Food Safety and Preservation: Master Handbook" are that you take into consideration that headspace has to be adequate to allow for expansion so jars don't break. That's a 1/2 inch for wide-mouth pints, 3/4 inch for narrow-mouth pints, 1 inch for wide-mouth quarts and 11/2 inches for narrow-mouth quarts.

Or you can repack the food into freezer containers.

Last year, I had the heat too high on a canner full of jars of venison and it went virtually dry a few minutes before the end of the pressurized period. Luckily, I heard the jars start to rattle and got it off the heat before any damage was done.

That time, after checking with the University of Idaho Extension office here in Lewiston, I opted for freezing the jars rather than process them for another 90 minutes. Little loss in quality, and no danger.

A young friend told me once about having some home-canned chicken spoil. She had processed according to what she remembered her mother doing. Unfortunately, her memory wasn't accurate. Fortunately, it spoiled quickly and obviously before anyone ate it.

Even if she had remembered correctly, guidelines change as food science improves. That's why you hear less often of someone becoming ill or dying of eating home-canned food.

There's less risk in canning fruit because of its higher acidity, but even then following the rules is worth it. I open a jar of something almost every day. Home-canned peaches, cherries and apples are staples in visiting grandkids' meals. And green beans, too.

So here's a little free advice: Most counties have an extension office where you can get answers to your questions, pamphlets and checks of your pressure canners. Much of that is free; some services have a nominal charge. If you're going to get your instructions from the internet, use a university extension site.

Floch suggests a University of Georgia website where a PDF of the U.S. Department of Agriculture National Center for Home Food Preservation - USDA Complete Guide to Home Canning, 2015 revision is located. The address is http://nchfp.uga.edu/publications/publications_usda.html.

Or you can call UI Extension here in Lewiston at (208) 799-3096 or email questions to nezperce@uidaho.edu.

And for Pete's sake, when you're doing something as important as preserving food for the people you love, don't set two timers at once.

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Lee is an avid gardener and a retired Lewiston Tribune reporter. If you know of or have a special garden or yard, you can let her know at sandra.lee208@gmail.com or call Close to Home Editor Jeanne DePaul at (208) 848-2221.

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