Home Canning Away From Home

Article Tools

Image Gallery

Print

E-mail

Comments

RSS

We started with 30 pounds of homegrown hamburger (which cost us only $3.00 out-of-pocket for grinding), 10 pounds of onions and a few bulbs of garlic from the family garden, 50 pounds of beans that I bought for $2.50 from a seed mill, and $6.50 worth of chili powder, mix, and water from the cannery. By the time we'd added on 147 30-ounce cans and lids at 33d each from the canning kitchen (the use of all facilities was included in the price of the cans), we found ourselves toting home a grand total of 275 pounds of chili for a total out-of-pocket cost of $60.50 (just 42¢ per 30-ounce can).

That's not bad, especially when you know that several brands of chili with meat (probably not as good as ours!) sell for anywhere from $1.23 to $1.29 in the supermarkets around here. At an average of $1.25 for a 30-ounce can, that means the same amount of "ready made" chili would have cost us $183.75 off the grocery store shelf. Which, in turn, means that by putting in a few hours down at the cannery working up our own "brand" of chili . . . we saved a total of $123.25. Which is pretty good wages!

As a matter of fact, we'd have saved money even if we hadn't had our own meat and garden produce. If we'd bought everything at retail, the hamburger ($27), beans ($15), chili powder, mix, and water ($6.50), onions ($5.00), garlic ($1.00), and cans and lids ($48.50) would have set us back $103. Which, subtracted from the $183.75 that the same amount of canned chili sells for in the stores, would still have left us better than $80 ahead of the game. That's economics anybody can understand.

METAL OR GLASS

Most of the equipment in the cannery we use is vintage 1940 and the old equipment will handle nothing but metal cans. Now that the interest in home gardening and food preservation is growing again, though, the Ball Company (a large manufacturer of glass canning jars) is actively working to place its small and relatively inexpensive ($5,000 to $8,000) community canning kitchen in the hands of small towns, co-ops, religious groups, and private individuals across the country. The Ball unit, as might be expected, is designed to use glass jars . . . which, unlike our metal cans, can be recycled and used again. Chalk up a strong environmental point in favor of the glass containers.

WE HAVE A FOUR-MONTH SEASON

Our canning season up here in Montana runs from July through early November. We begin with early fruits and vegetables and end with meat, soup, stew, and—of course—chili. Throughout most of this period other do-it-yourself families like ours keep three full-time employees busy at the community cannery from 7:00 a.m. to about 6:00 p.m. five days a week.

RSS | Comments | E-mail | Print