BELLEVILLE, Mich. (WXYZ) — Apples, peaches, sweet corn, and tomatoes: with all of these fruits and vegetables in season now, it's a popular time to pickle and can. That way, you have delicious foods all year long.
We went to the kitchen of a self-taught chef in Belleville to show us how to properly pickle and can.
Watch Jolie's video report below
"My mother did it, and I think it kind of brings me back to her a bit," said Mary Spencer, the owner of Taste a Cook's Place.
Canning and pickling are two of Mary's favorite pastimes.
"You got beautiful fresh tomatoes in the summer," Mary said. "You can those, you have them all year round, and you get to pull them out and say, 'hey, I made this', and that's kind of part of the allure."
Spencer is no stranger to the culinary world. She's been teaching cooking classes for over 30 years.
"If it has anything to do with food, I do it, you know," she said.
But cooking was something she discovered late in life.
"Basically, I got married and I couldn't cook, and that was over 40 years ago, so I started taking cooking classes and I got terribly hooked," Spencer said.
Today, she's the owner of Taste of Cook's Place in Plymouth, where she teaches all types of cuisine, ethnic, savory & sweet, and even canning and pickling.
"I do bread and butter pickles, which are kind of like sweet and sweet and sour pickles," Spencer said. "I love to can okra."
Pickling and canning are fun and delicious, but it's important you follow all the steps carefully, so that what you're making is safe to eat.
My family really loves chutney, Indian chutney, which is really super simple to make," Spencer said. "So I want to have my jars cleaned, really, really well cleaned with hot water. You want to have your canning lids...have them in hot boiling water to sanitize them, and then you want to have some hot water boiling in a pot so that you can hot water bath them, which is basically the preserving process."
And if the lid makes a popping sound, that's how you know your jar is properly sealed and can be stored for up to a year.
"If you don't hear that pop the next day, you may want to either use that jar immediately, throw it in your fridge and use it for the next week, or re-water bath it," Spencer said.
We found out people across the state love to do this, filling their shelves with jams, jellies, and sauces. Some say it's to have fresh and flavorful produce year-round...or to carry on a tradition. For Mary Spencer, it's a way to feed her family and share with her community.
"I think it just brings me back to my childhood and, you know, the comfort that it gives me," Spencer said.
