Sunday, July 18, 2010

'Urban Homesteading'? That'll Cost You

When summer gives you a motherlode of fresh fruit, the obvious solution is to make jam -- right? Not so fast, you home-cooking enthusiasts. Of course homemade jam will taste delicious, be better for you than store-bought, and allow you to appreciate summer's bounty all year long. But once you start looking for jars and other supplies, you'll soon realize that peeling and cooking the fruit is the easy (and cheap) part. It turns out that while the "slow food" movement has produced thousands of enthusiasts who want to return to the roots of old-time cookery, the equipment supply stream hasn't quite caught up yet.


Perhaps the manufacturing of these food storage supplies could end up being a cottage industry...

Please read more at the link!
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

While a big freezer and/or a large food dryer are a fairly large capital expense, and there indeed needs to be quite a bit of prep work even under these conditions, neither is much compared to jams and preserves.

Also an orchard (if one has the ability to have one) should have variety, as well as the garden. Florida has a year round gardening climate, so there should be a lot of fresh things available year round if not always the same things.

Anonymous said...

I'm sorry to have to even say this, but I don't think we'll be eating ANYTHING from Fl., for a VERY L-O-N-G TIME.You have to know... the COREXIT used there & in the surrounding areas will have DEADLY/TOXIC FALLOUT,all over your fruits & veggies, also--- your water!!! We are going to have to RE-THINK how we buy & what/where we buy,for A LONG,LONG TIME!!! :(

Anita Stewart said...

To the first comment, the article mentions that while drying, storing, jarring and canning are in of itself, viable methods for storage of food, the supplies and availability of the items needed to do this are scarce...especially in an urban environment. And to the second comment, I am with you, everything is tainted now, soil, water, rain, anything harvested. Nothing will be truly organic here in Florida. Not unless the water is purified, soil is trucked in and plants are grown in a greenhouse with filtered air.