Nationally, Cooperative Extension has for decades been a source of accurate information on safe home food preservation and emergency preparedness, and currently offers hands-on home canning classes in Ithaca. Carole Fisher, Community Educator at CCE-Tompkins, has scheduled the following classes:
Making (Strawberry) Jam (Wednesday, June 18th, 6:30-9:00 pm) Canning for Beginners (Tuesday, July 22nd, 6:30-8:30 pm) Making and Canning Salsa (Tuesday, July 29th, 7-9 pm). These will be held at the Cooperative Extension Education Center, 615 Willow Avenue, Ithaca. Because the Cooperative Extension facility isn't equipped to process or preserve large quantities of food, individuals work with produce provided for use by the class, and then are able to go home and repeat the process with food from their gardens or local growers. You may register for any of these classes by calling 272-2292. In addition, anyone with questions on home food preservation or food safety in general can call Carole at CCE-Tompkins or email her at: [EMAIL PROTECTED] In the past, Carole has scheduled canning classes and has had to cancel some due to lack of registrations. She is encouraged to know of the resurgence of interest seen on this list, and she would be glad to schedule additional classes if there is sufficient interest. She also would be happy to be involved in discussions on how to more widely share this information in the context of the proposed efforts that have been discussed here. I would like to add a word here about food safety. While many of us (myself included) learned "home canning" from our mothers and grandmothers, some of the old-time practices they passed along have been updated due to safety concerns. Over time, the USDA and national Cooperative Extension system have developed research-based standards for a wide range of home food preservation methods, and have designated the University of Georgia Cooperative Extension as the site of the National Center for Home Food Preservation (recently referenced by others on this list) as a public resource for this information. All of the classes offered at CCE-Tompkins are based on these USDA standards and use proven recipes. A useful guide to home food preservation, So Easy To Preserve (5th ed), is offered on the UGA website (http://www.uga.edu/nchfp/) and we expect to have copies available for sale at CCE-Tompkins before long. We have 2-3 copies of the older 4th edition in stock, now offered at half price ($7.50) through our front desk. Sandy Repp Cornell Cooperative Extension of Tompkins County 615 Willow Avenue Ithaca, NY 14850-3555 607.272.2292 _______________________________________________ For more information about sustainability in the Tompkins County area, please visit: http://www.sustainabletompkins.org/ RSS, archives, subscription & listserv information for: [email protected] http://lists.mutualaid.org/mailman/listinfo/sustainabletompkins free hosting by http://www.mutualaid.org
