Don't reserve your preserves just for charcuterie: Andrew Coppolino
CBC
About a year ago, Murray Zehr of 1909 Culinary Academy was looking for canning jars to preserve some of the harvest from his one-acre kitchen garden near Ayr, Ontario. To his surprise, he couldn't find any in stock.
"During this pandemic, essentially what we saw was that preserving became so popular that we actually had a shortage of Mason-style jars globally. Millions and millions of people were growing and preserving their own foods," Zehr said.
As a chef and culinary instructor, the phenomenon prompted Zehr to write a book called, "What Else Can I Do With These Preserves?"
"People have all these items sitting in their pantry, and they don't know what to do with them," he said.
Historically, canning and preserving — two of humankind's oldest kitchen pursuits — focused on saving the bounty of harvested food for times when shortages were anticipated, such as winter or siege.
Today, for the most part, we have a year-round supply of virtually all foods (and very few sieges), and preserving food is not a life-and-death issue.
However, the periodically empty shelves early in the pandemic have proven to be the exception to the rule.
