NO OPEN KETTLE CANNING!! Its not safe! Canning whole tomatoes at home is a bit difficult as it will usually seperate and you see almost clear liquid and the tomato pulp seperate in the jars. I have just about given up on trying to can whole tomatoes. Instead, I use a Villware food strainer and make a puree instead. I hate watery tomato sauces, so I use mostly the meaty plum types, and cut each tomato in half to scoop out some of the water and seeds. You don't have to be too picky as this step just reduces the extra water you usually end up with. I add salt when canned, and each jar gets that measure of salt as I found its difficult to 'guesstimatet sometimes the amount your planning on canning. Also, I add the acid to each empty jar at the same time as the salt. The reason is quite simple. If I had added the salt and acid at the cooking time, and guestimated the amount needed, then cooked the tomatoes down to thicken them, it has a tendency to increase the salt and acid, as your only boiling off water to get a thicker product. Needless to say, you can also make a chunky type salsa, but there again, the processing will soften the salsa bits a little. Pressure canning can be done, and you may still want to add the acid, just to be sure. For that open kettle 'soup starter', suggest boiling it for at least 5 minutes before you plan to do anything else with it. Botulism is something you don't want to mess with... Not only must the kettle of water be over the jars tops, but should be at least 2 inches of boiling water above the jars .

Short of it - she has no intention of changing her canning methods.

Hmmm, too bad. Is she even open to reading about the "new" (to her) regs that have been in place for over 10 years now?

If not, then all I can suggest is that to keep the peace with MIL - a vitally important goal - let her teach you the basics on tomatoes (not the soup as it is much more risky) as she sees them, nodding politely all the while. Then, once you are on your own, learn the right way by taking a course at your local county extension office (preferably without her finding out about it).

We can be of great help here as can the Ball Blue Book and the NCFHP (linked below) which is the source of all the current rules and regs.

Home canned tomatoes that have not been properly canned, if hard cooked for 10 mins. before consuming are supposedly safe. It's up to you. ;)

Dave

PS: I have to admit that I wouldn't pass up too many opportunities to politely slip into the conversation with her while learning points like, "Interesting, Mom. I wonder why the current guidelines require that we.... instead? Plant the seed in her mind - who knows, it may grow. :) Good luck.

Here is a link that might be useful: NCHFP

A nice NBEW book with the latest canning guidlines can also help.

You might reconsider your willingness to eat what your MIL cans.

But, to answer the other question, 10 minutes boiling (actual boiling time, not time to come to boil) will kill botulism toxins - not the spores, however. Don't just heat that soup. Be sure you boil it.

Just as a point of interest, your MIL is not 10 years or a little out-of-date. She's a lot out-of-date. But many people are tremendously resistant to changing their canning practices. There's an emotional factor there I don't fully comprehend. People don't want 1930's medical treatment. Why would they want 1930's canning practices?

I thought I'd share a little quote to demonstrate just how behind-the-times open-kettle canning is.

"Open Kettle - This method has been succeeded by more modern methods. Open Kettle canning is not recommended for fruits or tomatoes because of loss of nutritive value of the food and the danger of contaminating the food before jars are sealed. . . "

That comes from my 1948 Kerr Home Canning Book. Instructions for Open Kettle canning were provided for such foods as peaches, but Kerr clearly didn't recommend it. The same book also provided BWB times for low acid vegetables but again said, "A pressure cooker is recommended for prcessing low-acid foods. . ."

In other words, Open Kettle Canning, especially for low-acid product, is not just out-of-date, it's downright archaic.

Still, you can't control what others decide. My SIL open-kettle cans salsa. I just don't eat it.

To answer some pressure canning questions - yes, you must add acid to the tomatoes, even those being pressure canned. The tested times are predicated on that assumption. Pressure canned tomatoes are generally higher quality than BWB tomatoes because of the reduced processing time. That may seem counter-intuitive with the pressure. Nevertheless, that is the case.

Most people find citric acid is the least "invasive" addition to tomatoes in terms of taste. Lemon juice is second and vinegar is the worst.

Carol

Now that the USDA has gotten recommended acid content up to fail safe levels, maybe they could work on making safe, but palatable, recipes. I don't want everything to taste like a pickle. Tomatoes should not taste like salsa.

Present recommended practices discourage me from canning and I will not risk using the old methods even though I and everyone I knew as a kid lived on food canned that way.

Jim

The tomatoes don't taste like salsa with the acid. Even the commercial products all have added acid, if you check the labels.
You can use the method for crushed tomatoes and they don't take as long to process. I think you may like them the best.
Yes, all tomatoes need acid with both pressure or water bath canning.
There is no way I would ever taste that soup !!! That is SO unsafe. Problem being, you cannot detect botulism. No taste, no smell, no visual signs. One taste and it can kill you. So, you decide if it is worth the risk.
No amount of boiling would make me feel safe.

Jim, there are lots of wonderful "palatable" recipes out there. In my opinion most of them don't come from the Ball Blue Book but from other reputable sources like "Small Batch Preserving".

I'm not discouraged by current canning prohibitions. I just regard it as a challenge, no different than the constraints all cooks face - budgetary, time, availability of product, etc. Good cooks have always faced limitations they had to overcome.

I'm guessing a lot of people got sick with some of the traditional canning methods. They just didn't get seriously ill and/or they didn't attribute it to the food they were eating. Like "24-hour flu", which doesn't exist. Invariably that's some form of food poisoning.

Or we forget many of the traditional foods were safe but not particularly palatable. It's ironic we speak of how wonderful home-preserved foods used to taste when the reality is that memory has put a nostalgic sheen over recipes we might not be so fond of if we could taste them today.

Pickled products are a prime example. The salt levels for fermented pickles used to be incredibly high. And many of the old relish recipes are loaded with sugar to compensate for the super-strong vinegars.

As far as open-kettle canning is concerned, I wouldn't worry too much about jams, preserves, canned peaches and other fruits, even 100% vinegar brine pickles or relishes. Odds are the worst that will happen is easily detectable spoilage. But the soup is definitely a concern.

Carol

TL, just to give you an idea, botulinum toxin is a million times more toxic (by concentration needed to kill you) than strychnine, which is in rat poison. So if you got splashed while opening a jar of soup to boil it, and that splash touched your mouth, you could die. Maybe. Obviously you have safely eaten the soup before, but the stakes are high and you may not always get away with it.

I agree that it is important to keep a good relationship with your MIL (especially since she is an in-law and you don't have a lifelong relationship). When I got interested in dog training, my mom picked me up a dog training book for $1 from the used rack at the library. It was a methodology I don't agree with, so I said thanks and told her I didn't agree with it. She said she would give it back, and I said it would actually be more useful to toss it so nobody else subjects their dog to this method (which I felt was very mildly inhumane). But that really hurt her feelings: she bought me a book and I threw it away!

I have really had to work on being more sensitive to my relationships than my beliefs! So you might decide you need to politely tell her that you don't want your kids (if applicable) eating her canned soup anymore, and ask her if she could freeze some for you instead, or if you could do a joint session with her soup and your new pressure canner (uh, assuming it matches a tested recipe).

It sounds like you are aware of both the safety issues and the relationship issues, so you are all set to proceed carefully and do a great job. Happy canning!

Melissa

Thank you all for your comments and advice.

I will continue to casually mention (in a nonconfrontational way) to my MIL some of things that I have learned. The vegetable soup starter is a staple around here in the winter, so I think I will be using her recipe and FREEZING instead. May also freeze most of my tomatoes this year until I become comfortable with using a pressure canner on my own. My MIL and I do pressure can green beans together, so I hope to gain some experience there.

Thanks again! And I will most likely be seeking your advice again as the garden grows.

I like blanching and freezing yellow wax beans. They seem to have a moch better taste compared to green beans. I hate canned green beans as they are just too mushy and grayish looking.

I agree with Linda Lou - adding that bit of lemon juice doesn't affect the taste. It's imagined. ;) But then I have very old taste buds too.

We are going to do some with citric acid this year just for comparison. Wife's taste buds are a couple of years younger so we'll use her for the taster. ;)

Dave

If you know how to open-kettle can, what steps can you add to that process to make it safe. Can you go ahead and can the tomatoes that way, put on the lid and the ring, and then put them in the pressure canner for a certain amount of time? I'm going to have to convince a close friend that open-kettle is not the way to go. They have been doing it for generations so I doubt they'll even listen, but I'm going to try regardless. If there was just an extra step to it, it may not be as hard to get them doing it properly.

Open kettle can be converted by making sure that there are two inches or more of water ABOVE the caning jars and lids. The canner must have a cover as well. For tomatoes, you add some citric acid or bottled lemon juice to insure that the acidity is high enough to make it safe to can. The jars are filled with the boiling liquid and quickly capped with new canning lids (came out of simmering hot water) and rings that get snugged down. The jars are then placed in rack (if you have one in the canner. They must be elevated above the bottom by about a half to an inch. Cover and bring the pot to a boil. Timing required is different from pints to quarts. Doing things for generations might be fine for regular cooking and baking recipes, but not very safe today, for home canned items. You can also pressure can them if you like, or if your pressure canner is big, and tall enough, it can be used as a boiling water bath canner with a loose fitting cover

If you know how to open-kettle can, what steps can you add to that process to make it safe.

It depends on what food product they are open-kettle canning as to the changes that need to be made. As Ken said above, acidification of tomato products is required whether processed in a BWB or pressure canner. But green beans must be pressure canned.

The biggest change required is some sort of post-jar/lid processing. Many old devoted open kettle canners do no processing of any kind - BWB or PC. They just invert the jars and call it canning.

If you can get them to at least learn how to do proper BWB you have made some progress, not enough, but some. ;)

Dave