Tag Archives: canning

Tom Colicchio and all of the hottest chefs are doing it.  The Culinary Institute of America is teaching it.  Consumers are responding and attempting to replicate the techniques at home.

We’re not talking about molecular gastronomy here, we’re talking about pickling and canning — the back-to-basics preparations that 93% of professional chefs indicate are either hot trends or perennial favorites.  The pros are pickling everything from cherries to apples, green tomatoes to shallots, ramps to okra and pears to eggs — and they make it look so cool, not to mention delicious.

The consumer interest in pickling and canning extends beyond culinary appeal to economic necessity.  Many consumers are growing their own fruits and vegetables and are preserving a portion of the bounty. This behavior is evidenced by the unprecedented success of publications such as Organic Gardening, which has seen a circulation jump of 25%, and the sharp increase in seed packet sales.  Burpee, the world’s largest seed company, experienced a sales lift of 25% in 2009, and smaller companies such as Harris Seeds saw an increase of 80%.

Last fall, sales of in-home preserving products by Ball and Kerr rose 12%, and the category, overall, experienced the highest annual growth rate of any supermarket sales category as tracked by Nielson.  Read more...