THE WHO, WHAT, WHEN, WHERE, WHY, AND HOW OF CANNING.

QUOTE from George Bernard Shaw: "There is no love sincerer than the love of food."

I found this quote in one of my quote books and thought it appropriate for my BLOG entry today. The love of food is one of my great loves in life. Breakfast is my favorite meal. I don't know how any human can skip breakfast. How can a person have any energy during the day when they have no fuel in their body. I love food so much that I eat five times a day - but small amounts.

The sibject of food was on my mind because yesterday Ruth Ann and I (mainly Ruth Ann) finished our canning for the summer. We ended up with about 75 quarts, pints and half pints of sweet pickles, dill pickles, kosher dill pickles, beet pickles, salsa, tomato juice and stewed tomatoes. So today I'm going to explain what I've LEARNED about the origins of canning and the purpose of canning.

THE WHO, WHEN, WHY AND WHERE OF CANNING. Canning was created by the French in 1795 when Napolean offered a sizeable financial rerward to anyone who would invent a method of keeping food safe for his military troops.Nicholas Appert, a chef in Paris, won the prize when he developed the canning process. At about the same time, the tin-coated metal can was patented in England. So that is how it started.

THE HOW AND WHAT OF CANNING.  Canning is the technique of preserving food in airtight containers through the use of heat. This process of food preservation is possible because the heat treatment inactivates enzymes and kills microorganisms that would cause food to spoil during storage. The airtight packaging protects the food from recontamination following sterilization, thus permitting storage at room temperature for many months without spoilage. Fruits, which are high in acid, must be boiled a little less than a half hour. Meats, fish, poultry,and vegetables, however, are low in acid and  must be boiled for a half hour or longer in order to kill the microorganisms.

Ruth Ann LEARNED to can from her mother while growing up on a Minnesota farm in the 1950s. I'm grateful she LEARNED because I sure love to eat the fruits of her labor. I get to enjoy her canned goodies through the fall, winter and spring. Her canning contributes immensely to my love affair with food.


HUMOR for today.

A WOMAN TELLS HER PRIEST, "Father, I have a problem. My two female parrots only say, "Hi, cutie, Wanna have some fun?"

"Don't worry," says the priest. "I have two male parrots who only pray and read the Bible. We'll put them in the same cage - your parrots are sure to stop saying that horrid phrase."

The next day, the woman takes her parrots to the priest's home.The male parrots are inside their cage holding rosary beads and praying. When the woman places the female parrots in the cage, they cry out, "Hi, cutie, Wanna have some fun?"

One male says to the other, "Put the beads away, Frank. Our prayers have been answered!"