Foods and home making

3. The jars should not touch one another. There should be about two inches of space between the jars so there will be good circulation in the oven. 4. If the fruit is cold packed, boiling hot sirup should be poured into the jar. 5. The fruit, whether cold or hot packed, should be put in the oven immediately after the jars are filled. 6. The time given in directions for oven canning, obtained from the firm manufacturing your stove, should be followed carefully. A longer time is required for cold pack than for hot pack. 7. The contents of a jar do not reach a temperature higher than the boiling point of water. Oven-canning is satisfactory for canning fruits and acid vegetables such as tomatoes. SUMMARY Foods spoil because microscopic plants grow on them. The microscopic plants causing foods to spoil are yeasts, molds, and bacteria. These plants are also called microorganisms. One way of preserving foods is to : 1. Heat them to destroy bacteria and other microorganisms. 2. Seal them in jars to exclude air which contains bacteria and other microorganisms. Canning Fruits 521 The process of cooking food and sealing it in jars or cans is called canning. Methods of canning commonly used for fruits : 1. Open kettle 2. Hot- water bath : (a) cold pack ( b ) hot pack 3. Oven canning Heating foods during canning in order to destroy bacteria and other organisms is called processing. REVIEW QUESTIONS AND EXERCISES 1. A girl cooked some peaches in an open kettle. She merely washed the jar in which she poured and sealed the fruit. The peaches spoiled. What probably made them spoil? 2. Some pears were canned in the hot-water bath. Old rubbers were used in sealing the jars. The pears spoiled. What was the probable cause of spoiling? 3. Some uncooked plums were placed in a cold jar. A sirup which had been allowed to get cold was poured around the plums. The jar was partly sealed and placed in a hot-water bath. The jar cracked. What probably caused the breakage ? 4. A jar of fruit was inverted immediately after canning. A bit of sirup oozed out from under the rubber. What should have been done with the jar of fruit to prevent spoiling? 5. A jar of deep red cherries was stored in an open shelf near a window. The cherries became lighter red in color. How could the change of color probably have been avoided ? HOME WORK 1. If possible, can some fruit at home. Grade the results of your work by following a score card. You cannot score your work thoroughly unless you open the jar and taste the fruit. The flavor is one of the most important items. You probably do not want to open a jar until later in the year. If the fruit is in a clear glass jar, you can, without opening it, score points other than flavor. Score Card for Canned Food Appearance of food Perfect Score Color 10 Arrangement in jar 5 Uniformity of size 5 522 Food Preservation Perfect Score Container Neatness 5 Rubber (new) .10 Label (neatness and complete information) 5 Total 40 If you open the jar, the scoring may be completed as follows : Contents of jar Flavor 4° Texture (firmness) 20 60 The total perfect score would then be 100. Your teacher may ask you to hand in the score of your fruit. CHAPTER XXXVIII CANNED AND DRIED VEGETABLES Can you answer these questions ? If not, look for the answers as you study this chapter. 1 . What vegetable contains acid ?