I have had opportunities to teach canning classes and to talk to people about bottling fruits and vegetables. I encourage them to make decisions to do a few things differently than their grandmothers. For the most part people listen respectfully — until we touch on tomatoes. The need to add acid to create a safe product always stimulates comments and questions.
Then, when we come to salsa, faces turn incredulous. “What? I need to use a tested recipe?” Generally someone remarks that they have bottled their favorite salsa recipe for years and no one has died. If I venture to say “at least not yet,” I am met with glares.
I have a pat answer to this. Just freeze it. You can make any mixture you like and put it in the freezer, but if you bottle it you need to use recipes that have been tested for acidity. If you just love your salsa recipe, go ahead and follow that recipe, just put it in the freezer to store it safely.
The harvest is underway, and empty bottles are finding their way into the canner and back to the shelves full for the coming winter.
You have to wonder just who thought up the idea of putting food into bottles (or cans), heating it and expecting it not to spoil. Just where did that come from? Certainly it must have been someone who lived after the revelation that small, unseen organisms were responsible for illness, spoilage and a host of similar crimes. But that is not so.
One might imagine folksy origins as some sort of serendipitous discovery when our grandmother’s grandmother’s grandmother cooked over a kettle in the fireplace to feed her family, maybe making chili sauce — an old fashioned version of salsa. It is a sweet picture, but not accurate.
Instead, the story of canning comes from the rather violent background of the Napoleonic wars. Napoleon Bonaparte, who lived to conquer, observed that “an army marches on its stomach.” And he was bent on keeping his armies marching.
Apparently he had found out that no one — not even a warrior — is particularly effective in or agreeable to do battle when he is weak from hunger. With hoards of foot soldiers marching across Europe and supply wagons undoubtedly trundling along close behind, Napoleon had his hands full. Exactly how do you send provisions from Paris to re-supply those supply wagons in Austria?
It was no small endeavor and keeping that food edible until it could arrive on the front lines was a major enterprise as well. Malnutrition was rampant among the troops. It is no wonder that soldiers ravaged food supplies as part of the spoils of war.
When it came time for the troops to invade Russia, he knew something had to be done. It’s a long, long way from Paris to Moscow. So Napoleon hit on a royal idea. He sponsored an imperial contest offering 12,000 francs to anyone who could figure out a way to preserve food for a long period of time.
Nicolas Appert, a Parisian candy maker, took on the challenge. Like everyone else in his day, Appert knew nothing about germs, but he was observant. He noticed that wine stored in airtight bottles did not spoil.
Following that logic, he filled wide-mouth bottles with food, corked them carefully and heated them in boiling water. He didn’t know that the heat sterilized the food. The hot food expanded, driving the air out and as it cooled, the corks sank deeper into the jar sealing out air. He may not have known why it worked, but it did. My guess is that the success rate was probably somewhere around half, but that was a vast improvement over zero. Appert was onto something and he became 12,000 francs richer in 1809.
A few years later, tin cans came on the scene and an Englishman named Peter Durand decided to put them to use to seal up foods. The “tinned” foods kept the British army and navy fed and in the American Civil War.
As the years have passed, canning and home bottling has become more and more scientific and more and more reliable. With new advances, the products have become safer and safer. Even in recent years, old protocols have fallen to newer and better methods of food preservation. Foods that contain enough acid are eligible for water bath canning, while low acid foods must be subjected to the higher temperatures in a pressure canner.
Fruits are high acid. Vegetables are not, unless they are pickled in ample amounts of vinegar.
Because the acid level of tomatoes is on the borderline between fruits and vegetables, some acid must be added for safe water — in a process called bath canning. If you process a mixture of tomatoes with other vegetables, as you do for salsa, more acid is required for water bath canning. You do have the option to pressure cook your salsa if you don’t want that extra acid.
And no, hot chilies do not contribute to the acid levels of salsa. The spiciness of chilies is the result of a chemical called capsaicin, not acid. You can add extra acid, but never reduce it, and you can change your choice of added vegetables but never increase the overall quantity as compared with the tomatoes. For example, if your tested recipe allows for one cup of hot chilies, and you don’t want the mixture that hot, you can add fewer chilies overall. You can also exchange part of that cup of hot chilies for mild chilies, bell peppers or even zucchini and finish filling that cup with hot chilies. Just don’t put in higher quantities of vegetables.
My good friend, Vida Frieden, taught a group of ladies about making salsa last week. Being the diligent soul that she is, she brought samples (our favorite part of the class). She had prepared and bottled small batches of three different tested, canned salsa recipes. Then she generously opened one of each of the bottles so we could sample them to taste the difference for ourselves. They were all very tasty, although each had a different flavor.
One was made with vinegar added. The flavor of vinegar was not overpowering, probably because she chose to use cider vinegar, which blended in well with the tomatoes. One recipe called for lemon juice, which does not change the flavor noticeably since it blends into the tomato taste so well. The third used cider vinegar and had a little cucumber added. It was also tasty, but different from the others.
Here are the recipes we compared. Try one and see what you think. (Note: when cutting or seeding hot peppers, wear rubber gloves to prevent your hands from being burned.)
Fiesta Salsa
Courtesy of Ball Blue Book
(Yield: about 4 pints)
7 cups chopped, seeded, peeled and cored tomatoes
2 cups chopped, seeded, peeled cucumbers
2 cups chopped and seeded banana peppers
1 cup sliced green onion
1/2 cup chopped, peeled, roasted Anaheim peppers
1/2 cup chopped jalapeño peppers
1/4 cup minced cilantro (optional)
1 tablespoon minced fresh marjoram
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup cider vinegar
2 tablespoons lime juice
Combine all ingredients in a large saucepot. Bring the mixture to a boil. Reduce the heat and simmer 10 minutes. Ladle hot salsa into hot jars, leaving 1/4 inch of headspace. Adjust two-piece caps. Process 15 minutes in a boiling water canner.
Tomato Salsa (using slicing tomatoes)
Courtesy of USU Extension
(Yield: 4 pints)
4 cups peeled, cored, chopped tomatoes
2 cups seeded, chopped long green chilies
1/2 cup seeded, chopped jalapeño peppers
1/4 cups chopped onions
4 cloves garlic, finely chopped
2 cups vinegar
1 teaspoon ground cumin (optional)
1 tablespoon oregano leaves (optional)
1 tablespoon fresh cilantro (optional)
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
Combine all ingredients in a large saucepan and bring the mixture to a boil, stirring frequently. Reduce heat and simmer 20 minutes, stirring occasionally. Ladle hot into pint jars, leaving 1/2 inch headspace. Adjust lids and process in a boiling water canner for 15 minutes at 0-1000 feet altitude, 20 minutes at 1001-6000 feet and 25 minutes above 6000 feet.
Tomato Salsa (using paste tomatoes)
Courtesy of USU Extension
(Yield: 16-18 pints)
7 quarts peeled, cored, chopped tomatoes
4 cups seeded, chopped long green chilies
5 cups chopped onion
1/2 cup seeded, finely chopped jalapeño peppers
6 cloves garlic
2 cups bottled lemon juice
2 tablespoons salt
1 tablespoon black pepper
2 tablespoons ground cumin (optional)
3 tablespoons oregano leaves (optional)
2 tablespoons fresh cilantro (optional)
Combine all ingredients except cumin, oregano and cilantro in a large pot and bring to a boil, stirring frequently, then reduce heat and simmer 10 minutes. Add spices and simmer for another 20 minutes, stirring occasionally. Ladle hot into pint jars, leaving 1/2 inch headspace. Adjust lids and process in a boiling water canner for 15 minutes at 0-1000 feet altitude, 20 minutes at 1001-6000 feet and 25 minutes above 6000 feet.
Note: This recipe is designed to use paste tomatoes. Slicing tomatoes requires a much longer cooking time to achieve a desirable consistency.
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