So, having been so thoroughly inspired here, I'm getting ready to do some non-freezer preserving in earnest, as a middle-aged neophyte to the practice. I'm very excited, not in small part because I'm expecting to be totally swamped through the winter with my day job, and like the idea of having a lot of canned components to work from. So I've been reviewing this thread, and was reminded of something I'd meant to post.
A year or two ago someone (Shelby?) posted about a pickled eggplant recipe that subsequent members raved about. I like eggplant a lot, but I tire of it long before its season has faded here in New York, so was intrigued at the idea of canning it at peak for eating later in the winter.
In that discussion, @ElainaA had expressed concern that the recipe called for canning in oil, which she indicated was disfavored by expert preservers as too risky for botulism. I read something on point in "Putting Food By" (Greene, J.; Hertzberg, R; Vaughan, B.; Schmidt, S, ed.), a respected treatise. At p. 333 of the 5th edition of the paperback, a recipe for pickled mushrooms notes that products which are pickled in oil need to "first take up enough acid to become truly pickled before the oil is added to the mixture and the jar is capped. If the oil were added too early, it would inhibit the mushrooms' ability to take up the acid that pickles them (this acquired acidity makes them safe to be canned")."
I the neophyte read this as speaking to ElainaA's concern -- if the item is truly pickled before it is greased-up, it is safe for canning.
Just wanted to pass it along; I know you guys are expert canners, and don't necessarily need reports from the primers. But if there were nagging concerns over that eggplant recipe . . . anyway, I'm going to check out the state of eggplants at tomorrow's markets. It's a touch early, but who knows. The weather's been weird all year.
