Preserving a Way of Life

I know I’ve spoken about poverty food before, of how the great cuisines of the world grew out of the necessity of scarcity. I do tend to go on about the considerable skill involved in making every bit of available foodstuffs not only edible but, in fact, tasty – a collective ability formed over thousands of years of practice. Now, all that knowledge is slipping away.

I am fascinated by the idea that the industrialization of the food supply chain has, for those of us in the western world, nearly eliminated the need to know anything about the production of our food. How many of us, for example, know how to break down a whole animal into its various mussel groups and cuts? Make cheese? Dry fruits? Mill grain? Is there any other body of knowledge that we let disappear so willingly?

It wasn’t so long ago that basic food preparation and preservation know-how was common; it was a fundamental survival skill. After the Second World War there was a concerted effort on the parts of canned food manufacturers to portray home-preserved foods as unsafe. As a result of their successful campaign, people all over the western world put down their mason jars and dug in to the dinner-from-cans-and-boxes era that most of us grew up in. Now some people wouldn’t know how to shell a pea much less remove the pinbones from a whole cod.

There are other side effects too, ones which we are only now collectively beginning to address. Eating foods when they are in season, once the only option, has only recently become a realistic alternative. Besides, overcooked caned green beans are always in season, right? There are transport costs to consider as well, both monetary and environmental, in delivering these foods, suspended in tepid vegetable water, sometimes from the other side of the globe.

I realize I am in danger of contradicting myself here, so let me clarify something: preserving food, and eating preserved food, is not inherently bad. Neither is eating food out of season. In fact, in a food climate where one can buy strawberries year round or frozen corn every day of the year, it is difficult to see why we should be interested in these ancient arts of survival. The simple reason we need to hold on to these skills lies in the outcome.

There is a special joy in opening a jar of your own white peach preserves on a winter morning to stir into your porridge. They glow, as if you somehow managed to trap, with their gentle blush and honey sweet aroma, a part of the summer day on which you preserved hem. Conversely, there is a great magic in the autumn-cool smoothness of cinnamon scented applesauce when it accompanies barbequed pork on a sunlight-lingering summer night.

My point? Commercial canned foods bad. Home-preserved food good. Now run along to your local farmer’s market, buy some local produce, find your grandmother’s favorite cookbook (bound to be full of recipes for jams, preserves, pickles, and chutneys), and get to work.

Now, I know I called making preserves an ancient survival skill, but no one has ever said, in the history of mankind: “Thank god I know how to make red onion marmalade. It may have just saved my life.”

Nevertheless, with its ghost of rosewater flavor and savory-sweet pucnhes, this onion marmalade goes well with cheese and I love it with pâté. Survival skill? No. Dinner party survival skill? Maybe.

Red Onion Marmalade



4 red onions, peeled and sliced thinly
1 lemon juice and pips (in a small muslin bag or tea strainer)
sugar

Place the onions, the lemon juice, and the pips in a stainless steel pot and fill with water until it is just level with, but does not cover the onions. Bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer until the onions are soft – about 20 minuets. Cool overnight.

Weigh the onions and water. To this add ¾ of their weight in sugar. Return to a boil and cook until it reaches between 105ºC and 110ºC (220ºF – 230ºF). Remove pips, pour into sterile jars and seal.

As most of the pectin in onions in is the skins, this will probably not set like a traditional jam, but will be thick and syrupy.

Makes about 4 cups.