The Inventory Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH) in the Netherlands contains ICH of which the communities, groups or individuals involved have written a safeguarding plan. Those plans are reviewed by an independent review committee. Every two years an evaluation of the safeguarding takes place.

Description

Home canning is a way to preserve food. The process starts with disinfecting the glass jars. The pots or bottles are filled with the foods to be preserved. The jars are closed with a glass lid. Between the jar and the lid comes a rubber ring: the canning ring. To keep the lid in place, it is shut with a metal clasp. The jars are put in a canning kettle with nearly boiling water for a while. This makes the air escape from the jar, creating a vacuum inside. The clasp prevents the lid to blow off. When the jar has cooled, the clasps can be lifted. The content of the jar is now storable for years. The jar can be opened by pulling the tongue of the canning ring. The jars can be reused for canning food after thorough cleaning.

 

Community

While in the old days housewives were forced to can to make the food storable for a longer period, today it is the amateurs who can their food. There are food banks that have set up a gardening project. The surplus of the harvested fruits and vegetables is canned, and can be eaten throughout the year in this way, without having to throw any of it away. Schools pay attention to food spilling and conservation methods. The Landskeuken (Field Kitchen) serves as a museum knowledge centre in the field of the home canning tradition. Knowledge is gathered and passed on, in cooperation with the Estate Manor Mensinge in Roden, in the province of Drenthe.

 

History

Around 1800 Napoleon Bonaparte offered a reward to the person who would create a good method to preserve food. He noticed that his troops benefited a lot from eating vegetables and fruits. En route, there was often a lack of food and the food that they brought quickly spoiled or was already rotten when delivered to the troops. Confectioner Nicholas Appert discovered the canning method and won the prize that Napoleon had promised. Appert did not yet have the canning jars as we know them today. He used glass bottles, which he filled with all kinds of food, closed them with a big cork and wrapped them in canvas. After he had put the bottles in hot water, and the air had escaped, the food appeared to be storable for months. The word wecken – Dutch for canning – comes from the German Weck family. Johann Weck developed special pots, which were to be called weckpots. Around 1900 the family started up factories and from that moment on one started to call this method of food preservation ‘wecken’. After World War II the deep freezers came into use and many housewives rapidly preferred these. Today canning is seen as a relaxing way to preserve the often self-grown food. New techniques have been found for canning, in the dishwasher for instance. This is far less labour-intensive than the traditional way. Currently it is the trend to combine vegetables and fruits in a jar, instead of one kind of vegetables or fruits per jar.

Contact

Stichting Centrum Culinair Erfgoed
Carolina Verhoeven
8433JK
Haulerwijk
Friesland
Netherlands
Website