Korean Job Discussion Forums

[12ax7]

[NYC_Gal 2.0]

Canning traditionally uses jars. She's talking about the sterilization process (called canning). Did you sterilize the jars so that you could keep the jam for months, unrefrigerated, or did you just wash them and fill them up, and the jam had to be refrigerated and then eaten within a few weeks?

[Jonephant]

I took my wife to the UK for 2 months last year and we had alot of fun picking wild blackberries, damsons, plums, crab apples, sloes, haws and anything else we could grab. Its helps im a bit of country boy and child forager:) I recently made my friend (who owns a small bakery) jams to sell.

I love those le parfait jars too which can be bought in Korea though the cheaper alternative is Bormioli Rocco jars that are made in Italy but readily available in Korea from namdaemun market or Gmarket. Though at 3000won per small jar not the cheapest. For sure the best place to by cheap fruit is Gyeongdong market. Close to Cheongnyangni. If you go at around 6pm and hang around the wholesale fruit section then they start to sell off the boxes of fruit dead cheap. Last night i bought a 5kg box of cherry tomatoes for 5000won.

Like someone mentioned before, for all your baking needs you need to head to bangsan market. They have all the baking equipment and ingredients you could ever need. Also they have online shops aswell such as http://bakingnara.com/main/main.php

I hope this helps

[alistaircandlin]

yeah, it is a nice way to spend an afternoon - picking fruit and making jam. My wife always remembers that experience, when we picked fruit in Cambridgeshire, because she grew up in Seoul, so it's a big deal to be out in the English countryside.

I'm also interested in foraging, but have never really had much opportunity to do it. Although I'm from the country too - I didn't really have that interest as a kid, when I actually lived there. I did once go picking wild mushrooms up in Hebden Bridge with this guy who worked as a herbalist, and had a special interest in mushrooms. He took a group of us to this forest, and what we found was that at first we couldn't find many, but after some time your eyes become accustomed to what you are looking for and you start seeing them all over the place. It was great - we cooked wild mushrooms with herbs and garlic in the forest. It's be nice to find out a bit about that sort of thing in Korea too - you sometimes see old people picking stuff.

anyways, thanks for the hint about Gyeongdong Market, Jonephant, and Hyeon In - for the tip about the baking market, too.

NYC Gal - I've always sterilised jars. It seems a bit weird to me to refridgerate jam, I guess because the original purpose in making it was to preserve fruit over the winter, before people had electricity or freezers. I never keep jam in the fridge, but that's just habit, I suppose.

I think I used to sterilise jars in the oven, although I did manage a homebrew store for a while, and probably kept some of the powder used for sterilising beer and wine bottles, so I might've used some of that. I believe that my mum always just washed the jam jars and filled them with boiling water before putting the jam in. She used to make loads of jam every year, beacuse we had fruit trees in the garden. I don't remember much of the jam going bad, and nobody died after eating it!

[NYC_Gal 2.0]

Okay, then that's what she meant.

I sterilized the jars back home, but once I opened one it had to be refrigerated. Here, I don't really have the space to do it. I never thought of using the oven. I'd always boiled them. I may try that. I usually just make a small batch�enough for one jar�and immediately put it into the fridge for use within a few weeks. I'm wary of getting sick. Back home, I had a huge kitchen with loads of space to can properly. Here, there's some room, but it's easier to just make small batches.

[Lazio]

[NYC_Gal 2.0]

No need to can properly? You've been lucky so far.

http://www.canning-food-recipes.com/canning.htm

[Lazio]

[northway]

[NYC_Gal 2.0]

I doubt your grandma didn't sterilize the jars and lids. You may just not have noticed her doing it. Sterilization can be done in an oven or water bath (the latter being more common.)

[Lazio]

Trust me, she didn�t sterilize the jars.

Why is it so hard to believe that the process I explained actually works?
It isn�t called �dry canning�, sorry. I tried to find the English equivalent with online dictionaries but nothing came up. The original word comes from �dunst� (German) which means steam. So if I wanted to create an English term, it would be dry steaming.

It�s should be done the way I described. The boiling jam itself sterilizes the jars. Placing them in blankets will ensure to keep them on a high temperature for longer time. Sometimes a large amount with 20-30 litres of jam all together would be slightly warm even after 2 days.
As it cools down the lid gets sucked on the jar by vacuum.

[northway]

[Lazio]