Yep. I have thought of that but unfortunately we have two huge trees right about the place that would appropriate. One is a pohutukawa and any delving between its roots would cause it no end of damage. Also we are volcanic and it is rather difficult to dig more than 10cms without striking huge boulders of scoria.
My long term plan is to build some sort of coolstore out of hebel brick and put the tiniest heatpump on it that I can, powered by a solar panel. This would keep it cool during the heat of the day and the nights will take care of themselves. All I have to do is enthuse my husband enough to help me. lol. All he wants is another garage (as if he hasn't got two and a carport already).
Anyway, I still like the idea of naturally preserved, live fruit in bottles or a crock. Somehow that appeals to me most of all.
emseacows,
Mar 10, 12:22am
I have an old coolstore at our place which is from the old days when there was no refrigeration. And its really cool. good luck with your coolstore methods.
elliehen,
Mar 10, 12:57am
I seem to remember some root vegetables being stored buried loosely in cellar sand in rural Iowa.
buzzy110,
Mar 10, 1:46am
And fruit. Can you recall any fruit storage recipes that will not require cooking up with sugar when it is time to eat them?
senj,
Mar 10, 4:09am
I get the impression that what you are trying to do is keep out the air which is what will rot your product, honey will keep indefinatley if airtight so perhaps the use of beeswax could be of help, as I do a lot of bottling of fruit and freeze down apples and make our own relishes and chutneys I will follow this thread closely in the hope of finding a new(old) way of going about things.
buzzy110,
Mar 10, 4:18am
I have thought of honey and as you can see the blueberry recipe I posted uses honey on the inside of the lid! Honey definitely has unbelievable keeping qualities but the minute it is diluted it begins to ferment. Fermentation does require air though so I'm playing around with cold bottling in water as per my first recipe and sealing with honey in the lid.
Hopefully what I will get back is fruit that is not too dissimilar to the fresh product, unsweetened and uncooked, retaining the nutrients and enzymes and which I can eat without having to further process into pies, chutneys, pickles, relishes or just plain cooked. All these processes alters fruit natural characteristics - i. e. texture, taste, crunch, etc, as does drying which is the only other alternative, at present.
winnie231,
Mar 10, 7:02am
buzzy - I'm sorry to report that so far your question has simply thrown up more questions ... . but there is alot of pride here in Golden Bay with folks who choose to eat & live as naturally as possible - so answers may come yet. I have folks who are refering back to their rellies in the Balkins for any ideas ... watch this space ... but most still preserve in the traditional ways which use alot of sugar & no help to you. I'll keep trying for you - I preserve in the 'traditional' manner as I figure the amount of finished product I eat at any one time is well within the bounds of healthy eating but I respect your views and hope I (or someone else) can help you achieve your goal.
emseacows,
Mar 13, 10:54pm
buzzy - havent spoken to my mother in law yet. But found this link for you read thru it - coz it talks about what you do if using water only. http://www.pickyourown.org/sugarsolution.htm
buzzy110,
Mar 14, 4:11am
Fingers crossed winnie. Actually I don't eat so much of the fruit I process into the normal favourites as well, which is why I was hoping to find some other method of preservation. Also I was thinking along the lines of uncooked and still retaining a lot of the characteristics of the natural product so I could just open the jar and eat.
I have quite a lot of fruit coming on line all the time around my place. Shortly there will be a glut of guava and feijoa and as I still have jars of jelly and chutney made from both fruits I was hoping to find other, more interesting ways of preserving them, in the same manner that lacto-fermentation preserves vegetables, leaving the basic texture intact, plus adding to the healthy quality of the vegetables by the magic of bacteria.
buzzy110,
Mar 14, 4:14am
Actually I'm beginning to understand that my quest may be 'fruitless'. Fruit has a bad habit of fermenting unless processed by cooking and that, more or less, alters their unique characteristics and destroys vital enzymes, whilst not boosting goodness.
In the meantime I shall experiment with the three recipes I posted earlier and see how they stack up in a few months.
annie.nz,
Mar 14, 9:56am
"Can you recall any fruit storage recipes that will not require cooking up with sugar when it is time to eat them? "
Buzzy - I may have misunderstood you completely here - but you can preserve fruit without sugar. I boil it till cooked and bottle as usual. Keeps a couple of years at least. And I don't add sugar when I serve it.
If I got your post entirely wrong, sorry!
buzzy110,
Mar 14, 9:34pm
annie.nz. No need to apologise. I am keen to explore each and every method that is offered. I am coming to the conclusion that apart from the cold water bottling method recipe I posted, and another cold preserving method using honey, lacto-fermented plums and making a vegetable kimchi I may be forced to admit defeat and bottle fruit by cooking in some form or another. Plain water bottling is a method I am considering.
I was hoping for another method that more resembled the cold preservation methods of vegetable lacto-fermentation, however, I feel that in order to achieve that goal I will need to experiment myself, because what is spinning around in my brain probably is highly impractical , which is why no-one else has ever considered it.
My main concern was that I have jams, chutneys, relishes and jellies for Africa. I give gift baskets of the stuff away at Xmas (60 jars last year) and still have tons of jars stuffed in cupboards, all unused. I have at least 10kg of frozen feijoa from last year which I need to process into something. And soon I will be innundated with persimmon, Argentina guava and more feijoa.
I am not keen to give anymore away, because not one person bothers to say thank you or even whether they enjoyed my offerings so maybe some people think homemade gifts aren't good enough. I lie, one person thanked me very much for the ham that I gave with all my lovingly handmade condiments! As if I cared about the ham.
buzzy110,
Mar 14, 9:36pm
this is a very helpful site and I will be considering which fruits I could possibly preserve in this way, using only water.
winnie231,
Mar 14, 9:43pm
buzzy - I finally caught up with the woman from xxxstan who does alot with wild fermentation ... and unfortunately she couldn't help any further. She has never heard of anyone 'preserving' fruit in the way you want & says for her own family, they simply eat fresh fruit in season, and bottle some without sugar (as mentioned above) for later use.
verrans,
Mar 15, 8:15am
Slightly off topic, but poster #1 it sounds like you have alot of fruit etc, why do you not just preserve enough for yourself and sell the excess fruit at a market? I'm not sure that you can sell preserves unless made in a commercial kitchen(correct me if thats incorrect) but surely fruit etc straight from the garden you should be able to. That may solve the excess fruit issue and give you some money to do other things with, and still allow you to preserve fruit/vegetables for yourself in any new way you find.
verrans,
Nov 3, 6:51pm
And yes very rude an un-appreciative for people not to acknowledge thanks for the preserves etc you make yourself.
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