Makeshift root cellars, food preserving and more

By Lucy Emmott

Have you found a great local farmer willing to sell you the most delicious carrots in the world, but only by the bushel? Wading in chanterelles? Found a great patch of wild chicory?

Congratulations! It sounds like your local food finding is going very well, and you are experiencing the age-old flip-side of famine – the feast. So, you may be asking yourself what you can do with local foods when they arrive faster than you can eat them (besides throwing a neighbourhood carrot appreciation night).

Lettuce, sprouts, celery and other greens mostly composed of water are really only suitable for fresh consumption, so get your fill when they are fresh and plan to eat heartier greens as the frosts arrive.  There are quite a few methods available to put other foods by for later consumption.

Freezing

More substantial plants such as kale, chard, and spinach, as well as cole crops like broccoli and cauliflower are best put away frozen. The standard procedure to prevent freezer burn is to clean and chop them, then drop them briefly in a large pot of boiling water (blanch), followed by a vat of cold, then drain and pack. We like to use zipper bags since they can be labelled, stacked, and reused, but anything that seals will work.

This method of preservation also suits herbs very well and vegetables such as green beans, corn, peas, and okra. All local soft fruits freeze well, blueberries and raspberries are notably delicious and altered very little by freezing. They do not need blanching.  Eggplant does not freeze well, tomatoes can be frozen whole (and their skins conveniently fall off when you take them out!) and peppers can be cored and chopped. Purees of squash, tomatoes, and mixed vedge can be used as the basis for wonderful soups in the winter months. Mushrooms are best frozen as a moiré; that is cooked in quite a bit of butter until the water is sweated out, and then packed.

The protein and taste of pollens, seeds and nuts, meats, and some cheeses is protected by freezing, and combinations of foods are classic freezer fare – such as soups and casseroles.

Freezing preserves many nutrients, most of the flavour, and a lot of the look of foods. It is also very convenient for cooking since many things can be pulled out already prepared and apportioned. Diced pepper and onions can be scooped out at will for great sautees and omelettes. Charts for how long to blanch each type of vegetable and how long they last ideally in the freezer are available online or in any public library book on the subject.

Canning

Making jams, jellies, salsas, pickles, and sauces is more work for a more processed product (nutrition may be compromised by the heat necessary for most canning, as well as the tasty preserving agents: read sugar and salt), but delicious results are possible. Canning is very good for longer term storage, although most canning manuals will tell you not to trust them after eight months or so. Our plum trees provide a delicious bushel of bounty over a period of about a week and a half every two years. We can the whole fruits (stones and all) and eat them over the following two years – incidently, we have also cellared, dried, infused, and frozen them to good effect. Canning requires a very clean work area, sterilized equipment and jars, and food in very good shape. If you either maintain a high acidity, or high heat, you can also do great combinations such as salsas, mixed berry preserves, apple sauces, and spaghetti sauces. Fish that is less tasty fresh and is difficult to bone, such as catfish and sucker can be pressure canned for flavour and to soften the bones, in the same way that calcium-rich salmon is canned.  

Cellaring

You probably already keep vegetables in some ideal environments – onions hanging on a coat hook down your basement stairs, potatoes under the utility sink, and carrots in the fridge. For larger volumes and to extend the types of food you can store, a root cellar and some other hidey holes are perfect. Onions and garlic as well as squash prefer cool (not cold) and airy places; we regularly keep them for an entire year just so. Landings and stairways or the tops of cupboards are great, but they can also be stashed under beds along with green tomatoes – wrap the latter in newspaper or leaves and they will gradually ripen and can keep until Thanksgiving.

Other vegetables prefer cooler and more moist conditions. Our brick house in North Bay was built in the 1920s and has a standard layout…but it is in an Italian neighbourhood and all of the surrounding houses were built with wine cellars. Crawl spaces, and some barns and garages have food storage nooks. Old farms often have a bank cellar that can be rejuvenated. If you are so lucky as to have any of these, clean the space well, acquire some bins and a thermometer, and you can store volumes of food for later use. 

Generally, autumn foods do well for longer storage – potatoes, carrots, parsnips, cabbage. Apples and pears store wonderfully, but should be kept away from other foods since the natural release of ethylene gas will cause other foods to spoil. Likewise, the root cellar is not the place for jelly jars whose metal rings and lids will rust and can be compromised by the humidity.

Check your cellared food regularly by inspecting for soft or bruisy looking veggies, and for moulds, and ‘off’ smells.

Drying

Building a solar dryer is a great project if you have young teens in the house, or if you like to tinker yourself. They, and electric versions of every size can be bought. We have found a number of simple electric ones at yardsales, and find the stackable rings handy for solar drying too. Drying is very easy – choose a morning which promises dry weather, collect unblemished food, wipe clean, slice thinly, dry. Dried food lasts indefinitely, although time and sunlight will decrease flavour and nutrition. You can dry herbs and teas, most substantial vegetables, mushrooms, meats, and even whole stews and chillies for camping and canoe trips.

Fermentation

This age-old method of preservation, has been used to keep every type of food imaginable. The process is simple, enculture your food with chosen bacteria (often lacto bacilli) to keep out the nasty ones.

This is the story of beer and cheese, of buried fish heads in Greenland, sauerkraut in Germany, and many soy and other products from Asia. 

Fermentation makes some nutrients more available for absorption, and the bacteria generate other nutrients; B vitamins in particular.

Winter is coming…why not put a little food by each week to enjoy during the colder months.

A great guide to root cellaring is “Root Cellaring: Natural Cold Storage of Fruits & Vegetables” by Mike Bubel, it is still in print and I haven’t met a library yet that didn’t stock this classic. Another classic that covers many types of food storage is “Putting Food By” by Janet Greene.  “Preserving Food Without Freezing or Canning: Traditional Techniques” by The Gardeners and Farmers of Terre Vivante, and other modern and ancient books cover the subjects of drying and fermenting.

Lucy Emmott is an Ontario-based forager and naturalist. She and her family operated the St. Onge family farm in Redbridge.