Students who might have reached for some store-bought jelly for that after-school peanut butter sandwich can now have a healthier -- not to mention cheaper -- alternative. People who know how to can and preserve food will have a leg up if the economy continues to decline, said Shari Steager, a teacher at Northeastern Senior High School.
MANCHESTER, Pa. -- Students who might have reached for some store-bought jelly for that after-school peanut butter sandwich can now have a healthier -- not to mention cheaper -- alternative.
People who know how to can and preserve food will have a leg up if the economy continues to decline, said Shari Steager, a teacher at Northeastern Senior High School.
Like Ms. Steager, many middle-aged people are whizzes with Ball and Kerr jars and pressure cookers. They can run tomatoes through a Squeezo strainer with the best of them and whip up homemade sauces in no time. They turn green gardens into colorful shelves of glass-encased fruits and vegetables.
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But Ms. Steager, who lives on a farm in Lancaster County, is attempting to teach a generation of convenience food eaters the art and benefits of home canning. And 4-H leaders are seeing a resurgence in the number of people who are starting gardens and preserving the harvest.
Ms. Steager teaches Test Kitchen, a Family and Consumer Science class at Northeastern. For one week, the students learn how to make homemade applesauce, apple butter and jam. The week culminates with a taste test pitting their homemade products against commercially produced counterparts and a test on food safety.
Ms. Steager believes that home-canned products are less expensive and healthier and that making them isn't as hard as her students probably think.
"I want to take the stigma away," Ms. Steager said.
For the first three days of the week, the students spent their 80-minute class period making each recipe.
Senior Anthony Kaufmann said Monday's jam was hard, but Tuesday's applesauce was dangerous.
"The canning was the hard part," he said. "You had to pour it from a big pot to a little jar, and it made a big mess."
"The boiling apples hit me in the nose," said 10th-grader Justin Mellinger.
Eleventh-grader Matt Walter said he liked operating the apple peeler, corer, slicer.
Matt said he liked the taste of the homemade items, but he wasn't sure that he would attempt to make it again.
"Why would you?" he said. "It costs more to produce it. Unless you have an apple tree."
Ms. Steager disagreed. She purchased a half bushel of Empire apples from Triple "A" Dwarf Acres in Manchester for $24. She figured that would make 16 quarts of applesauce, which is about $1.50 a quart. A quart of store-bought applesauce is close to $3. Organic applesauce is closer to $5 a quart.
But more than saving money, Ms. Steager tried to show her students that their recipes were healthier because they didn't contain high fructose corn syrup and preservatives.
Justin said he ate his jelly and apple butter for breakfast plus two waffles and milk.
"It tastes better when you do it yourself," he said. "And you can take pride in it. If I had the time, I would make it."
Ms. Steager isn't the only educator passing on the benefits of canning -- 4-H Youth Development Coordinator Mary Jo Kraft took her 4-H kids, including some of the urban groups that have their own city garden, through the process of picking and preparing canned goods this summer.
"Canning was a dying art," Ms. Kraft said. "But after 9/11, we became more family-focused. And now with the economic downturn, there is a resurgence and interest in canning and gardening."
