Jewels in a jar

Some copy editor has been waiting nearly a year to use the headline on today's Washington Post food section about canning: Yes, We Can.

It's a section worth perusing, if not keeping. The three stories about canning come from three perspectives: The man who learned to can jam from his Italian grandmother, the urban couple who take advantage of their CSA's U-Pick days and can massive amounts of tomatoes in their tiny Adams Morgan kitchen, and the thoroughly modern Mormon who cans basic dry foods to keep a supply on hand that can tide one over for months on end during hard times.

The recipes, however, did not make me want to jump up and purchase $60 worth of canning jars and a pressure cooker: beet-rhubarb jam, apricot-rosemary jam, preserved zucchini, tomatillo sauce. Maybe the apricot. Definitely not the zucchini; there's something about the canning process that puts a slime factor on the otherwise tasty squash. And I doubt the tomatillo sauce could outshine the Herdez version, which is already in a can.