Did you know that home food preservation is experiencing a resurgence in popularity? Workshops on skills like pressure canning, bottling, dehydrating and fermenting are attracting more and more people interested in self-sufficiency.

The cost of living is possibly one driver for the upswing in trend. Plus, people want to know where there food is coming from. What better way to know what has gone in to your preserved food than to do it yourself.

One of our Awhi Tu Collective members loves canning and she offered to teach what she knows in a wānanga/workshop on pressure canning meat. Naturally, we took her up on the offer.

I have to say, being a good old fashioned Kiwi girl, the freezer is where our meat is stored. Putting it into bottles for long term storage had never crossed my mind. A spot of research showed that European countries do quite a lot of meat canning. With curiosity piqued, Lynn, our resident canning expert gathered together a few inquisitive self-reliance food lovers and taught them the art of pressure canning meat. Here is a spot of feedback from one of the attendees.

“Pressure canning meat now seems way less daunting and so rewarding”.

“Lynn and Joanne presented our group with enjoyable, informative and hands-on learning. We learned that pressure canning happens in glass jars not tin cans. And a special kind of pressure cooker is used. It is easy but you need to follow the process carefully, then your canned meat can last well over 10 years.”

“Pressure canning is not so common in New Zealand but communities in America have been doing it for many, many years. YouTube has lots of information supporting what Lynn shared with us.”

“For lunch we sampled a range of preserved meats from Lynns pantry that were up to 3 years old.  It all tasted amazing! Pressure canning meat now seems way less daunting and so rewarding as another way of building food resilience and self-sufficiency.”

“BEST of all Lynn and Joanne are always happy to share their knowledge and experiences AND they live local! Thank you to Awhi Tu Collective for inviting Lynn to run this workshop, Joanne and Dave for, as usual, being amazing hosts and to Lynn and Rod for facilitating this workshop”

Here is what Sam had to say about the canning wānanga.

“This was just the most awesome event!! Huge thank you to Lynn and Joanne for some super useful resilience education that I absolutely cannot wait to put into practice”.

Clearly, the participants thoroughly enjoyed this workshop and got a lot out of it. So, we asked Lynn, very nicely, if she would do another one. She said yes. If you are ready to learn pressure canning and take your food resilience skills to the next level, click over to our Wānanga – Workshop Events calendar for the date of Lynn’s next Pressure Canning Workshop.