Among cooking hobbyists, canning is so cool, it's hot. Making up batches of pickled cucumbers, tomatoes, and peaches purloined from an overripe August garden or the prizes of an exuberant shopping spree at the local farmer's market, younger home cooks are turning to grandmothers and Web sites for advice on how to preserve favorite summer foods safely when a craving strikes in mid-January.

Up until recently, practicing the art of jarring and canning has all but gone underground, except in more rural areas closely connected to the land. In its heyday at the end of WWII, most households were canning and preserving the foods grown in their "Victory Gardens," when it was seen as a patriotic duty to ensure that your family was a self-sufficent as possible so more supplies and materials would be available to soldiers. And the broad availablility of prepared foods and the ever expanding network of worldwide food distribution ensures most folks can get strawberries in December. But the very qualities that make these products shippable also make them taste miserable.

And so, the long-neglected art of canning is beginning to make a comeback -- owing to the availability of plentiful and inexpensive produce, access to information, and interest from high-profile food types such as Equinox's Todd and Ellen Gray, who shared with us a recipe and method for canning abundant summer peaches and tomatoes.

Equinox chef Todd Gray fell for canning recently in a big way. According to wife and partner Ellen Gray, "Possession took place standing over a box of gorgeous peaches on one of those pull off the road farmer stops. Todd thought of a pioneering idea which was to preserve that summer bounty, a la those Ball jars you see in the hardware store and wonder what the heck you do with those," she said.

Equinox recently announced it will be canning foods and serving them as accents in the winter months, but don't expect to see cling peaches in heavy syrup here. Gray plans to use plenty of interesting spices like star anise and vanilla.

Jean Austin, a family and consumer science educator with the Maryland Cooperative Extension, a community outreach of the University of Maryland's College of Agriculture, says there are several reasons why food preservation is experiencing a renaissance -- one of which is the increasing accessibility of fresh produce.

"There's an enormous trend towards gardening," Austin said. "More people have shares in farms these days," she added.

Indeed, D.C. dwellers have been able to buy into food co-ops like Claggett Farm and Door-to-Door Organics for several years where, in exchange for a fee or a certain number of hours of farm labor, a box of fruits and vegetables arrives at your door weekly. Rather than throw out the excess, people are beginning to seek ways to save their hard earned local and in many cases, organic, produce.

"The incidence of, or interest in, home canning varies at times but is quite high for today's society," said Elizabeth Andress, project director for the National Center for Home Food Preservation based out of the University of Georgia in Athens, Ga. -- the town that brought butterbeans out of the South via the B-52s.

The center's Web site has step-by-step instructions for how to pickle, can, freeze, or smoke nearly every food you can imagine, and local cooperative extensions offer classes teaching the basics of food preservation.

"There are no survey data that can pinpoint the actual prevalence of canning in the U.S., but we have conducted two national telephone surveys over the past five years and looked at several other special interest surveys and would estimate the incidence could be at least 25 to 30 percent of the population that cans food at home," Andress said.

She credits desire to share special foods with family members, the desire to go into a home-based business, and the availability of inexpensive produce as factors.

People also seem to be more concerned about the quality of their food nowadays, a variable they can control more if they preserve it themselves. September 11, the powergrid scare, and fears of a bioterrorist attack on the commercial food supply may also be contributing to resurgent interest in canning your own.

Plus, the equipment is cheap and fairly accessible, particularly for the boiling water bath method so suitable for acidic foods and jams, Austin says. Pectin, ascorbic acid, Ball jars with lids, a magnetic lid lifter (a must for getting those sterile lids out of their near-boiling bathwater), and a rack to set the jars on in the waterbath can all be found at local hardware stores and many major grocery stores.

Canning experts frown on using grandma's methods for health and safety reasons, so check the Ball company's website, www.homecanning.com. (Apparently consolidation has taken place in the jarring industry and Ball pretty much corners the market.)

Here's one of Gray's recipes for inspiration, so get canning!

Summer Tomato & Peach Chutney

Yield: 6 quart jars or 12 pint jars

Ingredients:
3 lbs. plum Tomatoes, peeled, seeded & diced
3 lbs. peaches, peeled, pitted & diced
1 lb. Vidalia onions, peeled & diced
½ lb. piquillo peppers, minced
8 c. brown sugar
½ c. stone ground mustard
4 c. Champagne vinegar
2 Tbsp. salt
1 herb sachet (peppercorn, coriander, cinnamon, dry thyme)

Method: Combine all ingredients in a large sauce pot. Cook over low heat for 1 hour, stirring frequently. Boil and sterilize preserving jars, remove sachet and pour hot chutney into jars, leaving ½” of top space. Tighten with lids and cook 10 minutes in boiling water bath.

Photo courtesy of Equinox.