Dec. 10, 2008 - Consumer hunger for healthful, locally produced food has inspired the new "locavore" movement and renewed interest in home food preservation.
In order to eat California asparagus in the heat of summer, backyard peaches in the dead of winter and olives as part of a spring salad, basic knowledge of safe food preservation is critical. If done improperly, home food preservation can cause illness and even death.
Alice Cannon, of Banning, Calif., attributes the resurging interest in home food preservation to consumers' economic woes.
"With such high grocery prices, for heaven's sake, when things are on sale, people buy in quantity and want to put it up, freeze it, dry it or can it," Cannon said.
Gail Feenstra, a food systems analyst at UC Davis, says food preservation fits hand-in-glove with the notion of eating within one's food shed and reducing one's carbon footprint.
"When we talk about a sustainable local food system, one of the issues that comes up constantly is that people don't know how to cook anymore," Feenstra said. "If you promote food from local sources, you need to provide information about what to do with this fresh food."
Safe, wholesome home-preserved food has been sustained in California by an uninterrupted 94-year-long stream of research, information and instruction on food preservation from the University of California Cooperative Extension. UCCE was established with the passage of the Smith-Lever Act in 1914 as part of the nationwide system to provide practical information to American homemakers and farmers. At that time, in-home refrigeration was still decades away and preserving food to feed the family was an annual rite.
In the 1970s, with the availability of commercially preserved products and other modern conveniences, home food preservation became more of a hobby than a necessity. At the same time, the high demand for food preservation information was preventing home economists from adequately addressing what were becoming even more critical public nutrition concerns -- such as increasing rates of diabetes, obesity and malnutrition in low income communities. To fill the gap, innovative home economists at the University of Washington created the Master Food Preserver program, modeled after another successful volunteer extension effort, the Master Gardener program. The Master Food Preserver program soon made its way to California under the direction of the late George York, a UC Davis Cooperative Extension food bacteriologist.
The Master Food Preserver program certifies volunteers that attend a series of classes presented by UC Cooperative Extension academics in which they learn the science behind food spoilage and the causes of food-borne illness. Specific training is provided on canning fruits and vegetables, pickling fruits and vegetables, preserving jams, jellies and conserves, curing and preserving olives, preserving fish and meats, and dehydrating and freezing food. In return for the training, the certified Master Food Preservers volunteer to present the information to the community in workshops, on the telephone and via the Web.
San Bernardino, El Dorado and Sacramento county Cooperative Extension offices maintain active Master Food Preserver programs. The El Dorado County program has flourished, the coordinator said, because former director of El Dorado County Cooperative Extension, Bill Frost, offered consistent support.
"Master Food Preservers do an outstanding job of tying their educational programs to seasonally available, locally grown fruits and vegetables, thus assisting the community in taking advantage of readily available products while supporting local agriculture," Frost said. "Combining the importance of food safety, an economical method to extend the usefulness of fruits and vegetables, and the tie to local agriculture makes the Master Food Preserver program an invaluable asset to the community and Cooperative Extension."
During Frost's tenure, Christie Clary was hired to coordinate El Dorado County volunteer programs. She said many of the county's 50 certified Master Food Preservers are retired senior citizens.
"I think it's a great way that seniors in our community can remain active and provide a service to the community," Clary said.
In El Dorado County, weekly workshops are offered free to the public from July through November.
In San Bernardino County, where Cannon has been a certified Master Food Preserver for 15 years, the program hosts 11 public food preservation workshops each year; a fee of $12 per person per class has permitted the program to hire its own part-time office manager.
In Sacramento County, Master Food Preservers hold monthly workshops from January through November and charge a $3 materials fee for each session.
A wealth of information on safe food preservation is available from UC Cooperative Extension in science-based publications which can be ordered (and some downloaded free) from an online catalog at http://anrcatalog.ucdavis.edu/. Titles include:
* Making Table Wine at Home
* Olives: Safe Methods for Home Pickling
* Drying Foods at Home
* Safe Methods of Canning Vegetables
* Tomatoes: Safe Methods to Store, Preserve, and Enjoy
For more information on home food preservation, visit the California Master Food Preserver Web sites at:
