“Training is everything. The peach was once a bitter almond…”
— Mark Twain
I started canning this summer and, as with most of my culinary ventures, I do not excel at it. I like to be terrible at lots of things at once, though, so now I’m bad at canning too! My first attempt was peach butter. I followed the directions and boiled all of my jars and utensils for ten minutes. Apparently that is enough time to kill the creapy crawlies so that, once canned, they don’t multiply in your peach butter and, you know, kill you. After the crucial sanitation measures came peeling the peaches. This involved dropping them in boiling water for a quick dip, fishing them out, and then attempting to rub the skin off the fruit while you scald your fingers and drip peach juices all over the counter, the floor, and the child at your feet. Once peeled, the peaches were to be mashed with some form of sugar.
I stood over the stove while peach-scented steam coated the windows and appliances in the kitchen, and thought about the glorious peach butter that we’d be slathering on every confection within reach. We were only a short twenty five steps away! After much stirring and mashing came one rather strange test of the peach butter’s fortitude that involved a dollop of “butter”, a saucer, and the knowledge of whether or not the butter was “weeping.” I concluded that it was not.
I was then instructed to “pack” the peach butter into the hot sanitized jars. While my jars were lovingly sterilized they were no longer hot, and I found myself unsure of the importance of their hotness. Also, while adept at packing suitcases, I found myself in uncharted territory when confronted with packing a jar. Can I not just pour it in? Perhaps not, because once poured, sealed, and sunk into more boiling water for their “canning bath”, my peach butter remains a sauce. A delicious sauce, but a sauce nonetheless.
