S1E35 - Casandra on Food Preserveration

Episode Notes

Margaret talks to Casandra about canning, drying, and other means by which to preserve food.

The host Margaret Killjoy can be found on twitter @magpiekilljoy or instagram at @margaretkilljoy. You can support her and this show on Patreon at patreon.com/margaretkilljoy.

Transcript

Margaret Hello and welcome to Live Like the World is Dying, your podcast for what feels like the End Times. I'm your host, Margaret Killjoy. And this episode we're going to be talking about food preservation and specifically canning and dried food storage and some other things. This podcast is a proud member of the Channel Zero Network of anarchist podcasts and here's a jingle from another show on the network. Duh daaaaa.

Jingle One two, one two. Tune in for another episode of MaroonCast. MaroonCast is a down to earth Black radical podcast for the people. Our hosts, hip hop anarchist Sima Lee, the RBG and sex educator and crochet artists KLC, share their reflections on Maroons, rebellion, womanism, life, culture, community, trapped liberation, and everyday ratchet. They deliver fresh commentary with the queer, transgender, non-conforming, fierce, funny, Southern guls, anti-imperialist, anti-oppression approach. Poly ad and bullshit. Check out episodes of MaroonCast on Channel Zero National, Buzzsprout, SoundCloud, Google, Apple, and Spotify. All power to the people, all pleasure.

Margaret Okay, if you could introduce yourself with your name, your pronouns, and then maybe a little bit about your experience with prepping, like, I don't know, if you like work for any prepping podcasts that people might like, if you want to shout them out, but also your experience a little bit about what we're going to be talking about today.

Casandra Yeah, my name is Casandra and I use they or she pronouns. Um, I don't know, I've always been interested in foraging and gardening and preserving food and I happen to work for this really cool prepping podcast called Live Like the World is Dying.

Margaret Casandra is our transcriptionist and we've been talking—I've been bugging them more and more about food preservation. And finally I was like, can I just have you on the podcast? And then you have to listen to the sound of your own voice as you transcribe it. And they said yes, which was nice of them. So okay, so most of your experience in terms of food preservation is canning, is that right?

Salem Speaker 2 Yeah, that's—I think the two things that I do most are drying and canning, but I also do some fermenting and, like, salt preserving.

Margaret Cool. Okay, well, let's talk about all of it. Do you want to talk about the different methods of food preservation and which ones are appropriate for which foods and what you like the most?

Casandra Yes, I think there, there are two things that I think about when I'm deciding how to preserve something and one is, drying, for instance, is good for like really long-term storage. But—and it's also good because the food is lightweight, right? So it's very portable. But in my day to day life, I'm much more likely to use like canned food. So ease of use is another consideration when I'm deciding how to preserve something. And different food is best preserved in different ways. And that's something we can talk about when we get into canning especially a little bit later. Like acidity, how juicy something is, those things all come into play.

Margaret Okay. Why preserve food? I mean, like, obviously, you could just go to the supermarket and buy the food instead of canning it or preserving in other ways. Like, I mean, that sort of—that part's sort of a joke. But what is it that appeals to you about DIY preservation of food, like what got you into it?

Casandra Um, I live in the Pacific Northwest, and there are certain times of year where food is really abundant and accessible. And it just at a certain point seems silly to me to not take advantage of that if I could. You know, so if I have access to, you know, dozens of pounds of green beans once a year, why not can it instead of going out and buying it in the winter?

Margaret Okay, so what are the methods of preserving food? You've mentioned some of them, but is it possible that we could get a list of just, like, what—there's canning, salting, pickling, drying, what am I missing? Smoking? Curing? Is that what you would call that?

Casandra Yeah, I guess smoking and curing could—smoking is like a form of curing I think. Freezing. What else? Did we say fermenting already?

Margaret No, we haven't put that one yet.

Casandra Fermenting.

Margaret Okay, should we just go through them and talk about why each one's great?

Casandra Yes, yeah, we can definitely do that. It's hard to like, it's hard to talk about them all at once because they're all so different so...

Margaret Yeah.

Casandra Yeah.

Margaret Well, so if possible, I mean, like—one of the things I'm really curious about is that, like, when you look at green beans, you're like, okay, green beans belong in a can. And then when you look at something else, you're like, oh, that belongs fermented. You know, hops, obviously. But what, um—is it just the different methods just work for different foods, if you like are working with meats you're mostly interested in curing them or freezing them or something? Like, how does all this work? How do you how do you decide?

Casandra I decide based on what I like to eat most. So like, which preservation method I'm most likely to use because I'm not interested in wasting food. And then also just like, which is the most accessible to me. So for something like green beans, I don't know, I guess you could dry them, but I don't think that would taste particularly. good. So I want to preserve them in a way that tastes really good that I'm actually likely to use throughout the year. And then also space, I think space is a huge issue. So my pantry is only so large so there are certain things that it makes more sense for me to dry like nuts, right? I'm not going to can walnuts, though I suppose you could. I'm just going to dry them and store them in a bin.

Margaret Does it just take up less space because there's like fewer individual jars taking up space.

Casandra Mm hmm. Yeah, yeah. Definitely.

Margaret Okay. What, um, what's like the easiest to get into and/or what's cheapest?

Casandra Probably drying? Drying probably or salt curing because, you know, all you need to salt preserve something is salt.

Margaret Okay.

Casandra Um, but the drying as well. You know, you can sun dry or you can, like, create some trays for yourself and some airflow, you don't need a particular tool to dry something effectively.

Margaret Okay, what, uh—you said that drying tends to make things last longest. Like, what's the kind of like, scale there? Okay, so like, because you were saying how, okay, so you're saying how it's hard to talk about all of them at once because each one has like all these different pros and cons. So I'm trying to, like get you to talk about the pros and cons of different ones. But so like, what's the, like, you know, hierarchy of how long food can last. Like I