Learning from history. Several years ago, I read an account of food drives the Americans had following World War II to send food to starving people in Europe. In one small community, a gentleman donated several pounds of old, poorly stored dry fruit. It was nearly black and so unappetizing in appearance that the food drive organizers really did not want to include it in the shipment. But they did. And they felt bad about it. However, when they received a thank-you letter from the recipients of the food, that fruit was the only item specifically mentioned in the note. The starving people were so grateful for that fruit. It’s something to keep in mind. Sometimes our own dried and dehydrated foods will darken. It doesn’t necessarily mean they have spoiled and should be discarded. (Though, of course, if there is mold or an off odor, then the food needs to be tossed.)
The fruits in that little historical tidbit were dried and poorly stored. They shouldn’t have been kept that long. For a better shelf life, foods need to be dehydrated, canned, or freeze-dried. Freeze-dryers are too expensive for many of us, unfortunately. Canning isn’t always an option or desired. Sometimes we just want food preserved in different forms. Dehydrating provides additional options.
Difference between drying and dehydrating. Dried foods have had less moisture removed and generally have a shorter shelf life. Raisins, dried cranberries, dried apricots and mangoes, are all examples of dried foods. Many of these foods are dried using sulfur, which allows them to retain more moisture and thus be softer, while preserving them for a shorter period of time, usually several months up to a year. Some dried foods, like cranberries, also have oils added which shorten the shelf life even more. If very diligent about rotating stored food, this isn’t an issue.
Dehydrated foods, on the other hand, have had much more moisture removed and thus have a longer shelf life. They are not commonly sold in stores. We have to dehydrate most foods ourselves. When the goal is maximum shelf life in the least amount of space possible, foods are dehydrated thoroughly to remove as much moisture as possible.
Planning the trays. All those ads for commercial dehydrators show several trays with all kinds of fruits—strawberries, pineapple, kiwi, lemons, oranges, etc. They look so beautiful. And truth be told, mixing various fruits on dehydrator trays is not much of an issue. There’s little concern with apples tasting a bit like strawberries or oranges. But a lot of foods shouldn’t be dehydrated together. The smell of onions or broccoli will taint other foods. Not only should different foods not be mixed, but you’ll really get best results if you have only one type of food and preparation method in the dehydrator. Zucchini shreds dehydrate more quickly than slices. Strawberry slices dehydrate more quickly than strawberry fruit rolls. Strive to have only one type of food and preparation method per batch. It also makes the whole process faster and it’s easier to store jars of just strawberries or fruit rolls, rather than a little bit of ten different items.
Preparing the foods. Cut vegetables and fruits uniformly for even drying. The thinner the slices or finer the shreds, the more quickly they will rehydrate, if that is important. They will also powder more quickly and easily. The thicker the slices or shreds, the better they will hold together, like for soups, stews, and casseroles.
While most guides suggest the same for purees that are going to become leathers, I recommend leaving the edges a little thicker than the rest of the leather. This is because the edges dry out more quickly and will often simply break off. A slightly thicker edge makes removing the leathers much easier.
Blanching may or may not be necessary. Blanching slows or stops enzymatic action (which eventually leads to spoilage) and helps preserve the color. Celery looks better. Potatoes look much better. Fruit rolls retain their color much better if the puree is cooked for a few minutes with some lemon juice added.
Fruits are dipped for a few seconds to minutes in a lemon juice or vinegar solution. Vegetables dipped in boiling water, with the amount of time varying by type of vegetable and size of shreds, slices, or chunks. Frozen vegetables are perfectly blanched and ready for dehydrating. They’re also perfectly uniformly sliced, diced, or shredded for uniform drying in the dehydrator. In fact, they’re so easy to dehydrate and virtually fool-proof that they’re a perfect place for beginners to start. They will build your confidence in dehydrating quickly, as well as start filling your shelves.
If some fruits and vegetables, like potatoes, are not blanched, they will turn nearly black. While they may taste fine, they’ll be extremely unappetizing in appearance. And like it or not, appearance does affect our perception of how foods taste. All dehydrated produce will darken eventually; blanching slows the process. Darkening does not indicate spoilage.
Dehydrating process. All foods must be dehydrated as thoroughly as possible. Vegetables are dehydrated until they are crispy or crush to a powder. If they bend without snapping, there is still too much moisture inside. Due to their high sugar content, fruits may not snap when bent. Also, due to their sugar content, dehydrated fruits will not powder as easily as vegetables do. Fruit powders may be rather sticky and not powdery at all.
Importance of test batches. Are you really going to like the result? Some fruit varieties dehydrate better than others. In the fruit-growing areas of California, when the orchards sell their produce in bulk to the public, they will often advise which varieties are better suited for canning, freezing, or drying. Some fruits just don’t dehydrate all that well, but usually there is a variety or two that dehydrates better than others. Valencia and navel oranges yield a very sweet product. Most other orange varieties are rather blah. Tangerines are so high in water content that they need to be sliced rather thickly to have any flesh to eat when dehydrated. I’ve read rave reviews of dehydrated watermelon, but when I taste it, all I taste is squash. It may be me, it may be the variety I used. But I’m not spending any more time dehydrating watermelon.
After dehydrating, if you are going to be using the food in recipes, test how the dehydrated food actually works in the recipe. It makes no sense to dehydrate loads of thicker sliced large zucchini for deep fried zucchini if you don’t like it that way. Or zucchini shreds for chocolate zucchini cake if you don’t like how it works in the recipe.
Rehydrating. The soak time for complete rehydration of foods will vary depending on the size of the food pieces and the water temperature. In soups, no rehydration time is necessary. The veggies will rehydrate as the soup cooks. For casseroles or other dishes, rehydrate vegetables overnight in the refrigerator, 1-2 hours on the counter, or 10-15 minutes in simmering water. Use a 2:1 ratio of water to dehydrated vegetable, adding more if necessary. Cool water is preferred for items going into cool foods and salads. Warm water will rehydrate foods more quickly, but it should not be used to rehydrate foods at room temperature that are not going to be cooked. The potential for bacterial growth is too great.
Storage. The longest shelf life will be in vacuum-sealed canning jars with oxygen absorbers. I did a lot of dehydrating when I had a 3/4-acre garden in the Midwest. And at the beginning I packaged some of those foods in freezer bags. As newbies in humid Missouri, we didn’t realize that plastic isn’t much of a barrier to moisture when it comes to long-term storage. Naturally, moisture penetrated the sealed bags, and I wasn’t happy with the result. While I never had anything spoil, the foods weren’t crispy. Living in the desert, I wouldn’t have a problem using freezer bags if it was all I had, but I much prefer vacuum-sealing in canning jars for maximum long-term storage. And if I didn’t have a vacuum-sealer, I’d be content to just use an oxygen absorber.
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19 december 2020
I remember that story about the ugly blackened fruit. There is truth in it. Almost everywhere I've been in troubled areas (3rd world and or war)
ReplyDeleteSWEETS are a powerful influence. About equal in trading power to cigarettes and canned SPAM if you needed something or assistance.
Grandmother used to grow a patch of sugar beets to shred the beets into a pot of water to simmer for hours. Then when the water tasted sweet, she would drain out the liquid, the boiled beet bits (feeding them to the chickens, they LOVED them) and slowly simmer to reduce into a gummy mass. Rolled into balls and allowed to dry on a plate.
Christmas candy and birthday treats mostly. Special Guests in the tea or coffee.
The smaller Sugar Beet Greens were chopped up and dehydrated on the warmer section of her wood stove for add in for soups. The coarser ones chopped up and fed to chickens.
Drove the daughters thrift shopping a couple years and the shop had a book section. I bought nearly all of the one shelf at 50cents a book. One of the books was the Thrive cookbook which has a long section on rehydrating different types of dehydrated and freeze dried utems. I've found that useful. A few others from that day was 2 books on suituring and a book on dehydrating.
ReplyDeleteWhen i first got into drying and putting down in jars i would print labels with rehydration instructions on each one. Now i just have a couple copies of a cheat sheet laminated and in the pantry and kitchen.
Exile1981
Jennifer, that was another great article.
ReplyDeleteMany people remember how Grandma canned the bounty of her garden "back in the day." Most of these people are in the middle-aged or senior citizen category. What they are remembering are practices from an earlier time when people had living arrangements much different than today.
With the march of time, Grandma is gone, and her grandchildren are beginning to age out. The newer additions to the population, in large part, are living in homes built on lots of a steadily decreasing size. (Living in a condominium would multiply the problem.) The smaller the lots, the greater the builder profit. There is simply no place to grow much of anything more than three or four tomato plants in containers for the average homeowner in so many places.
Obviously, however, your readers include a disproportionate percentage of people who DO have access to larger gardening space.
For those who don't have space, there is not much return on buying produce and then dehydrating it. Going the expensive freeze-drying route in order to freeze-dry store bought produce is a financial non-starter.
If it comes to a point where society turns Mad Max, many survivors will turn to "the old ways" if they want to live. People will group together for safety, and it will likely be in places where the land can sustain the people living on it.
That's when everyone will need to know information like that included in your article. Obtaining pallets of Mason Jars and stacks of new lids for pressure canning will not be possible at the point. Once all stored food has been consumed, growing a garden and dehydrating will be essential for most people if a group is going to get through a winter. Hopefully, those joining the group will "bring to the table" the necessary quantity of vegetable seeds in order to make this possible. "Plant 'em if ya got 'em. Starve if ya don't."
BTW, cars with windows closed will likely make a great dehydrating devices and, in a true Mad Max World, there will likely be plenty of non-operable cars available for doing this.