Preserving the Moment
Jenny Gomes Inspires New Canners…
There’s something magical about Jennifer Gomes. She manages to be both modern and classic all at the same time. She’s a youthful, busy mom, who also happens to be a master pressure canner with a podcast and a cookbook, among other ventures. And she’s not about spending all day in the kitchen.
“I’ve had many people tell me they want to can like their grandmother did, and I love that sentiment so much,” she says. “But my audience is people who have a two-hour chunk of time on a Saturday where they’re not rushing to a soccer game or squeezing in some work from home, and they have this amazing flat of peaches from the Farmers Market. These are my people. I love teaching food preservation in small to moderately-sized batches with techniques and tools that are fast and easy. Yes, you can roast these vegetables today, then pull them out of the fridge tomorrow and do the processing. It’s only three steps that feels much more achievable to the person with 90 minutes while the baby naps. To be honest, I’ve never made marmalade in my life.” Cheekily she adds, “It’s not my jam.”
Traditionally, there are two types of canning: pressure canning and water bath canning. Pressure canning preserves low-acid foods, while a boiling water bath is used for high-acid foods. And, while pressure canning can admittedly feel intimidating to a first-timer, Gomes insists that with the right tools and guidance, anyone can have a pantry filled with hearty, shelf-stable ingredients. “Pressure canning suffers from a bad case of urban legend rumors because a lot of people have heard a story about someone having an explosion. But, using the instant pot as your reference, there’s a locking lid and a buildup of heat inside. Accidents usually happen because the lid is taken off before the pressure subsided inside. But new pressure cookers come with lots of safety features.”
Gomes also has a tip for first-timers. “My first recipe in the cookbook isn’t bone broth. It’s water. You can practice and have a couple of jars for under your sink in case of emergency. Or, you can just dump it down the drain and start all over. It’s a low -stakes, 100 percent success recipe that helps you get the hang of going through the process without having to think about the food part, and realizing it was way easier than expected.”
Gomes’ inspiration for stocking food stems from her own family roots. “I come from the land of chest freezers. I was a cattle rancher’s daughter, and the mode of food preservation for low-acid foods was just freezing things. But there are many people that don’t have access to that much freezer space, and pressure canning is a way around that. Jars are shelf-stable once they’ve come out of the canner and cooled. In fact, there’s a really inspiring canner named Marisa McClellan, and she canned for years in a tiny Philadelphia apartment. I just loved her perspective because she would store jars on cookie sheets under her sofa. She was always in pursuit of this wonderful sunny taste inside a jar, and she did it in a city, not a homestead.”
Gomes also insists there’s no replacement for knowing what goes into your food. “The ubiquitous American glass mason jar is a great metaphor for the idea that you can see what’s inside. So, whether you’re water bath canning jam or pickles, or you’re pressure canning soups or bone broth, you get to decide what goes in there. If you feel good about a conventionally grown flat of strawberries you got at the grocery store, go for it. If you want to be super intentional and source farmer-grown organic strawberries, or even better yet, support a farmer that butchers in a way that you feel good about and preserve that meat in jars, you get to decide all of that. It puts a huge degree of control in your hands when you know how to preserve your own food. That might be overwhelming for some people. But if you give yourself permission to cook with what’s available, it’s definitely going to be tastier than what comes from the store, and it’s probably going to be cheaper and healthier. Just give yourself permission to be imperfect in your pursuit of what might be your health ideals. That’s where the magic is.”•
The Perfectly Preserved podcast with Anna Cash and Jenny Gomes can be found by visiting thedomesticwildflower.com/perfectly-preserved-podcast/. The Pressure Canning Cookbook is available at a variety of booksellers.
