How long will home-canned food last?

I was cleaning out my pantry a couple days ago when I came across some home-canned jars of meat: beef and ham, as well as lentil soup.

Now this is nothing unusual, except for the dates: 1999.

"Eewww, yuck!" pronounced Younger Daughter. "Who'd want to eat meat that's almost as old as I am?" (She was born in 1998.)

While she has a valid point, here's the thing: we could have eaten it. The seals were perfectly fine. The texture was fine. It smelled positively delicious (especially the nice rich spicy lentil soup). In short, this thirteen-year-old meat looked and smelled like it was canned yesterday. I'm confident I could have made meals out of it without a problem.

Nonetheless I threw it away. After all, who wants to eat meat that's nearly as old as Younger Daughter?

Canning meat

A few weeks ago, the local LDS (Mormon) church asked me if I would teach a class on canning meats.  We're not Mormon but are literally surrounded by Mormon neighbors, and this isn't the first time I've been asked to share some knowledge on domestic skills.  Apparently the LDS church holds similar skills-type classes once a month.

So today was the day.  Here's the stuff I brought along: My canner, some empty quart jars (seven, since that's all my canner will hold), lids, rings, sample jars of canned meat, my canning book, some bacon and chicken breasts (the other meats were provided by the hostess), and all the little accouterments needed for canning: jar lifter, tongs, kitchen timer, etc.

Rather than going to the LDS church (which has a kitchen the size of a postage stamp with no room for people to see what I'm doing), a church member with a large and luxurious home graciously opened it up for the class.

About a dozen people attended (I couldn't fit them all in the picture) and we all had a lot of fun.  The attendees ranged from fairly experienced canners to utter beginners, and they asked a bajillion questions, all of them excellent.  We canned bear meat (hey, this is Idaho), pork sausage, chicken breasts, and bacon.  By the end of the class, even the folks who were most concerned about the supposed dangers of pressure canners (a common fear, I now realize) were energized to give it a try.

I really enjoy doing stuff like this.  I adore canning and can almost can in my sleep, so to be able to share some of the joy of canning with other enthusiastic learners was a pleasure.