Loving local

This is the time of year that, when asked what I like about eating locally, I can only laugh, lightly and respond, in an off the cuff sort of way, “what’s not to like?”  Because, really, as we get toward the end of August, the middle and high point of our New England growing season, it seems like the world is our oyster, or at the very least our orchard peach, and that’s a pretty nifty thing to be.

This summer was just about perfect.  We had a good warm spring, with not too much rain.  A lovely temperate July and a fairly mild August.  The fruit set and ripened, and did not get baked or blown away, and the result is that for those of us who are looking six months forward it is high time to be storing some of this perfect food.

Tomatoes and peaches, both thick on the ground and in the markets this year, can be water bath canned very simply, with minor prep.  They should both be skinned, using a simple blanching process (cut an X in the rump, plunge into boiling water for a minute, then into cold.  Skins should slip off the fruit) and both are close enough to safe levels of either acid or sweet that they can be put up in ball jars and hot water baths.  In the case of the tomatoes add a 1/4t of citric acid per pint to prevent accidental growth of dangerous bugs.  To the peaches you can add a dash of something sweet (we use maple sugar) to enhance their peachy-ness as they sit in wait for winter use.

Many foods lend themselves well to canning, others to pickling and still others to freezing.  If you’ve seen it in a Birdseye bag in the supermarket freezer section then you know you can do it at home, too.  Corn can be cut off the cob, spread on baking sheets, frozen and then stored in the freezer in bags.  The same treatment works well for blueberries, cranberries, cut zucchini, peas, chopped rhubarb….

Some vegetables, broccoli most memorably, don’t freeze so well unless they are first blanched using the same process described above for tomatoes and stone fruits.  If they are not blanched they get rank, off odors when defrosted.  Leafy greens freeze well after being sauteed.  Try it with kale, chard or beet greens to add them later to winter stews for extra vitamins.

The fact is, though, that as much as we try to save, nothing is like a tomato at the end of August, when the weather has been good and they are ripe off the vine.  That’s ok.  If we had it all the time we would never appreciate how special that tomato is, and how much better is tastes, and how much better it is for our bodies, when we get it locally- fresh, and perfect!

If you love eating locally, and want to continue to be able to get delicious local food more easily each and every year, please support the Mass Farmer’s Markets Association, and the next time you bite into a perfect tomato, don’t forget to thank your farmer!