I have in a storage shipping container over a hundred mason jars full of tomato sauce, pickled peppers, olives, peaches/stone fruit in syrup, jams, honey, spicy pickles indian style, preserved lemons, dehydrated food and plenty of saved seeds.

Bring on the zombie apocalypse, I can take care of my compound. This is stuff I can’t sell because the permitting and regulations for commissary kitchen space, insurance etc is just not worth it. I don’t want to throw away perfectly good food just because it is cosmetically not beautiful and the only people who want it want it for free.

As a small farmer who has to work hard to grow and harvest food, it annoys the crap out of me because some consolidator wants my ‘imperfect’ food for less or for free. It still costs me the same amount to grow and I am not big enough to give away for free due to scale.

Mason jars are awesome because you can sterilize them and reuse them. They carry well and can be stored. The rubber seal makes sure the goods stay viable for at least four years. I have food safety certification and I can tell when it’s ‘off’. But I can’t sell it because customers may not be knowledgeable. It’s not worth the risk and liability.

Also..I am a trained chef and I know how to make a spicy chili and bitter melon pickle. Can’t get that at Whole Foods. I preserve food mostly because I am so appalled that people think my hard grown food is less than it’s worth because it ‘looks ugly’. Fuck that. It’s worth many times over when it’s prepared as a value added product. And I know how. Why not live like a glutton. I became a chef and farmer because I love food. Not because I want to undervalue good food.

I literally have hundreds of mason jars and the blue tinted ones are collectibles. When I was growing flowers at the farm, they are great as flower vases and it keeps the flowers fresh and it can be swapped when the customer returned it for the next bouquet.

They stack well and they can also be used for measuring while cooking. They have measurements on the jar For example..if I have to make a cake..I can use it to measure by volume. A salad dressing: 1 measure lemon juice, three parts oil and flavorings. Shut it and shake it. Emulsified salad dressing ready. Goes in the fridge and good for a week. And ghee. Ghee never goes rancid. I can get 20 lbs of butter and transform it into ghee for one year.

I worked for a while in restaurants: and when it’s mushroom foraging season, it pours. You got to preserve them quickly or it’s gone! Some are dried/dehydrated. Mason jars work well for storing them at a small scale. I also have several jars of vodka infused with cherries or plums for liqueur. My fav is prunes in Armagnac. Takes 4-6 months for them to have the perfect drunken glory. And it stays fine for decades.

I have a few olive trees. Not worth pressing them for oil, but makes great preserved olives. Because I brine them, I have to rinse them and re brine multiple times. Usually people use 5 gallon food safe buckets. But at small batches, it’s actually easier with mason jars.

Oh! And you can also freeze them!

I make yogurt at home. It goes straight into the slow cooker or instant pot these days and won’t crack. When I make medicinal salves and lotions, I can use it like I would use a double boiler/Bain Marie. What most people don’t know is that mason jars are tempered different than regular glass. That’s why it can be reused again and again. Easy to sterilize the glass when preserving.