Western Pennsylvanians embrace tradition, innovation with canning

It’s canning season in Western Pennsylvania.

“You can ‘can’ just about everything,” said Denise Relihan, 55, of Harrison. “Tomatoes, peppers, garlic, rice, fruit, jellies, beans, juices, vegetables and meat too. The list goes on.”

Relihan has a designated canning room in her home and learned the art of canning from her parents.

“I taught myself pressure canning and oven canning,” Relihan said — oven canning is a method of preserving food by filling jars with food and heating them in the oven. “It’s not recommended (by canning lid manufacturers) but I’ve done rice and beans dry canning this way, including canned deer meat.”

Her favorite canning hack is using her dishwasher to wash and sterilize her jars.

Rachel Austin uses modern canning technology to can and jar a bounty of fruits and veggies for her family.

“I eat as much as I can of what I can,” Austin said from her Jefferson Township front porch Tuesday afternoon.

Her porch display Tuesday featured dozens of Mason jars filled with a variety of foods she either grows or purchases in bulk for canning. Several electric canners are at her disposal, replacing a large traditional pressure cooker, a gift from her mother after it sat around for months unused until Austin decided to give canning a try.

“I looked at the canner for about eight months. I was scared to try,” Austin said. “The first thing I canned was applesauce.”

Self-taught, Austin has canned for six years and often connects with other canning enthusiasts on social media and utilizes Ball canning recipes. She cans all sorts of foods including pickled beets, venison, chicken, soups, pickles, green beans, tomato sauce, jams and jellies and even juices like apple juice.

Her hard work paid off last year when she won second place for her canned homemade relish at the 2023 Butler County Fair. “I feel great when I’m canning. I like having fresh foods that don’t have additives,” said Austin, 34. “I know exactly what the ingredients are.”

The canning process takes hours because the jars have to heat up, the food has to cook and then the jars need to cool down.

Her electric canner can handle four quarts per cooking cycle and she uses multiple canners. “My husband’s a hunter and it’s nice to put away the meat. I have a built-in storage area in my basement,” Austin said. “I don’t like to waste food and it’s important to me to eat clean and nutritiously.”

One Italian family in Kittanning has embraced tomato time together.

Donna Bosco is passing down the tradition of making and canning homemade tomato sauce to her two grown children, Ava and Jacob Bosco. “I have fond memories of my Italian grandmother processing tomatoes in her cellar,” Donna Bosco said.

The family has used seeds from an heirloom tomato called Super Italian Paste tomato for the past 30 years. Additionally, Donna grows new tomato varieties to try out in the sauce. “I’m passing the torch,” she said.

Her son Jacob fashioned a drill to help speed up the tomato sauce-making process and they still use a tomato squeezing machine passed down from his late great-grandmother. “The best part is being able to use the sauce in the winter months,” Jacob Bosco said. “The hardest part of canning is definitely cleaning everything up after making the sauce.”

Seeing all of the filled jars lined up and ready to be stored is particularly rewarding to Jacob. “Tomato season is one of my favorite times of the year. You never get tomatoes that juicy and flavorful from the store.”

Married canning duo Teresa Whitacre and Paul Lytle put the fun in food prep for their annual canning pursuits. Together, the couple have 24 years of canning experience.

Lytle was raised on a 300-acre farm in Saltsburg and Whitacre hails from Dormont. “We can the old school method and my favorite thing is spending time together,” said Whitacre of the canning process. “Depending on the season we usually can with music playing and wine? Definitely.”

They can up to 100 jars annually and sometimes get a little competitive. “We make a contest on whose jars come out better,” Whitacre said.

They primarily can tomatoes, apples, pumpkin, potatoes, zucchini, carrots and strawberries.

A typical canning session can last up to 10 hours.

Whitacre said if she wasn’t canning, she’d have more time for other activities, but the canning tradition is here to stay. “It takes a lot of time and preparation but canning is enjoyable, especially enjoying the fruits of our labor,” Whitacre said.