 Boy, today has been quite appropriate for thinking about canning fruits. We are so dry in Oklahoma that I’m having to put a humidifier near my piano to keep the soundboard from cracking!! And today, nearly 50 mph winds stirred up loose dirt from drought stricken fields, sending it airborn, dimming the sun and leaving trees and a horizon with a snow flurry like appearance. It’s pretty certain that a boatload of Okies are thinking back to the days when fruits, vegetables and meats, in glass canning jars processessed when items were in season or available at the stores, were their only defense against starvation during the Dust Bowl days. A very interesting website about the kitchens of that time and of many other eras is The Historic Cooking School where Rena has kindly linked to my posts on vintage cooking. In talking with my dad about those times, he remembers his family buying grapefruit in canning jars and eating this citrus delight because it was not readily available fresh. My family has always been overly fond of oranges, tangerines and grapefruits and when I was growing up we had relatives along the Indian River in Florida which guaranteed us succulent fruit. This year, for Christmas, my parents surprised me with the most wonderful variety of white and ruby red grapefruits, navel oranges and tangerines. There were so many grapefruits that I decided that I had better do something with some of them before they spoiled. In doing research about the history of the canning process, I found this really neat site called Tasteful Inventions where I learned that nearly 250 years ago a French man named Nicolas Appert, encouraged by a 12,000 franc prize issued by the government, introduced his 14-year-in-the-making canning discovery as a way to preserve food for Napolean’s army because, “An army marches on it’s stomach.” Napolean awarded Monsieur Appert the money in 1810. So folks, canning has been around for a long time!!! C’est bon!! I have to say that when citrus fruits are canned, the taste is changed somewhat. Adding sugar or sweetened juices helps to reduce these changes and serving ice cold makes a difference too. Also, it is very important to remove all of the white pulp from any fruit prior to canning because the pulp adds a bitterness that you don’t want. When doing grapefruit, I do not peel and section, but rather slice and use a grapefruit knife to remove sections that easily leaves any pulp behind. Oranges and tangerines are much easier than grapefruits to deal with when peeled. Note: I used half pint jars for single servings, but pints and quarts are fine too. Directions: Place your jars into water to boil for sterilization or run through the dishwasher on sanitize cycle. Place lids into a saucepan and cover with water. Bring to almost a boil and then keep heated.  Slice the grapefruits. I used a total of 6 very large grapefruits, both white and ruby red, for this particular project and got 6 half pints.  Using a grapefruit knife, which is serrated and curved, cut around each section moving from section to section.  Scoop the grapefruit sections into a large bowl.  Squeeze grapefruit juice from each half into the bowl  You can make a light syrup with water and sugar, but I like to add real juice that has been naturally sweetened. Any grapefruit juice sweetened with apple juice and white grape juice works great. Add enough juice to cover the fruit.  Using a canning funnel, evenly divide pulp and juice between jars, filling to a 1/2″ headspace.  Wipe the rims with a warm, wet washcloth.  Remove lids from hot water and place onto jars. Add rings and adjust.  Place jars onto the rack of a waterbath canner that is sitting on a burner and has only slightly warm water in it. Do not place jars into hot water as jars can crack.  Make sure that the jars are completely submerged with about an inch of water above the lids. Turn the burner on ‘high’. Process the jars for 10 minutes at the point that the water starts boiling. 15 minutes for quarts. Store in a cool dark place and refrigerate before serving.  |
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