Harvest season rituals go back millennia

The smells of fall always evoke the most powerful emotions for me. The smell of a roaring wood stove wafting through the air, the damp earth and the freshness of fall dew, and my personal favorite: the aroma of tomatoes being blended and cooked into delicious sauce.

Food preservation rituals of the fall are events with roots that stretch back thousands of years. They are a valuable time for families to come together and focus on a singular task and achieve a unified goal. Bitter politics and distracting cell phones have no place in the kitchen while the blender is roaring and the canner bubbles like a witch’s cauldron. This time is a crossroads, a reflection of the past summer and a forward look into what the future holds. No matter what 2022 may be brewing, you and your family are at least a little bit more prepared. A little bit of marinara goes a long way.

Is this your first year in North Idaho? Maybe you’re looking to pick up on an old family tradition, or just looking for a way to pull the kids off their electronics to connect like humans again. Perhaps you’ve been preserving food your entire life and you just need a brand new recipe. Luckily, no matter what situation you find yourself in, the library has a resource for you. A brief search in the library catalog brought up over 100 books on food preservation, and 81 on canning in particular. The library also has at least 12 DVDs on canning food, if you prefer to watch and listen instead of flipping through pages while juggling boiling water and fragile glass.

Also, butternut squash puree is much easier to clean off a DVD than a book.

Preserving your own food has more benefits than connecting with family. It can cut down on your grocery bill, improve your health by reducing the amount of sodium you consume through store-bought foods, and even expose you to new tastes and flavors you’ve never experienced before.

Even if you don’t have all of the supplies you need to start canning your own food this year, now is a perfect time to start learning about it. Knowledge requires no refrigeration, has no expiration date, and so long as you borrow an item from the library, it takes up no space on your shelf.

Brenden Bobby can be reached at the East Bonner County Library, 1407 Cedar St., Sandpoint, by phone at 208-263-6930, or email at brenden@ebonnerlibrary.org.