Asparagus and Musings

I bought 8 more bundles of local asparagus at $1.59 per pound, pickled 6 more jars of it and blanched and froze another large container full of it. That makes 3 frozen containers and a total of 12 jars of pickled asparagus, plus whatever we ate for dinners over the last three weeks. Granted, two of the jars had to be kept in the fridge due to sealing issues, but for my first pickling experience, I think I've done pretty well. This makes more pickled asparagus than we've ever had in our house before, but then we've never even bought any before, so that wasn't much of a stretch. Turns out this recipe is a little more tart than the kids really prefer, but they'll eat one now and then, and the Huz loves them. So at least I'm feeding somebody with these things. I don't think I'll put up any more, though. If all goes well, we'll have regular cucumber pickles later this year and probably pickled beets as well, so there's a limit to how much stuff we need to pickle.

People wonder how cost-effective locavore eating is. I just looked up how much a case of 12-oz. jars of pickled asparagus would be, and found it to be around $40.00. I bought about $25.00 worth of local asparagus, only pickled the thinnest spears and froze or cooked and ate the rest, and paid about $8.00 for the case of empty 12-oz. jelly jars, which I will use again and again. So even adding in the cost of the gas for heating the water, the little bit of vinegar, salt, sugar and water for the brine, plus the tiny amount of pickling spice--I saved quite a bit of money doing these pickles myself. And apparently they're considered a specialty item. Not too bad on the cost front.

The second pickling session went more smoothly than the first and didn't take as long, so I have hopes that my learning curve on the canning and preserving will be short. I did help my grandmother with canning while growing up, but it's been a long time and I didn't pay as much attention as I should have while I had the chance. Who knew that in my 40's I'd wish I could go back and learn from her again, or even just be able to call her on the phone and ask how this or that works and what method is best for what vegetable? Maybe we'd have something worthwhile to talk about at last, instead of the weather. How odd to have more in common with someone once they're gone than you did while they were alive.

And what will my kids do when they're grown up and on their own? Will they, like me, have to learn how to can from a book, or will they learn from me while they have the chance? (After I'm finished learning from the book!) Eeep. What we as a society have forgotten in the way of basic survival skills would fill volumes, and it's a darn good thing someone has had the presence of mind to remember and document them! I know what raw vegetables look like; I've grown them, picked them, and helped to preserve them. But I recently ran into a young man in a big box grocery store who looked at a raw head of broccoli and asked what it was. He honestly had never seen fresh broccoli before--all the broccoli he'd ever seen had come from a box or a can.

To quote a movie villain: I weep for the species. But then I actually go to the farmers markets and talk to real, local, organic farmers, I watch the honeybees mob my now-fully-blossomed apple tree, I look at the plethora of books now coming out on how to eat ethically, organically and locally, and I think that if this grassroots movement becomes the next great fad--which it looks as though it's going to--we may yet have hope for our own survival. Wouldn't it be amazing to find a way to have our modern society and still be able to live, breathe and eat in it, too?