I'm not sure the author is coming at it from the right direction. You don't just hop out to a major metropolitan farmer's market and buy whatever you want to can that day if you want it to be economical. You can what you have, and you can what's cheap. You don't buy strawberries for canning when $15 just gets you a pint of jam, you can when you can get pounds at a roadside stand for a few dollars or just on sale at the grocery store. Hell, last winter I made fresh jam for my homemade rice pudding when the berries were out of season. I shopped economically and was able to get enough berries for far more than a pint of jam, all for $4. It sounds like the author tried to make gourmet, organic preserves and compare it to $4 Smuckers, which will always be a disappointment in price difference.

I grew up watching my grandmother can vegetables from her garden on a woodstove that was out on the porch (to save electricity and so the house didn't get so hot), so I learned how to can stuff growing up.

Since I live in the city now and I don't have a garden, I can stuff when I find something that's worth making/canning each year - either small batches of vegetables from the farmers market or if I go out to PA or upstate and get larger quantities there. Mainly chutneys, pickles tomatoes and some jams.

It's not really about economics for me - and I don't think it has to be. I find it very satisfying to can my own food and give it away or enjoy it later in the year. There are few better things than opening a jar of home-canned tomatoes in the middle of Feburary.

If I ever do live in a place where I can have a garden it will be more economical to home can. But for now, it's a hobby that I enjoy doing, and something that I recommend all home cooks at least know how to do.

The Eugenia Bone book is a great canning resource (and it has great recipes and food ideas). Another of my favorites is "The Busy Persons Guide to Preserving Food" which recommends the 'best' way to preserve (can, freeze or dry) all different sorts of food. It's a little dated, but the basics are good.

Now that canning is all the rage in Manhattan, look for prices for Ball jars and lids to skyrocket--if you can find them in your local feed store.

Any idiot willing to pay $18 for a jar of strawberry jam won't mind paying $5 for the jar it came in. Look for canning suppliers like Ball and others to ship where they get the most money.

Jeez, next thing you know, city folks will discover that, gee, you can put MEAT on your table without going to the store. "Old-timey" hunting may have something to it...

Canning is so obviously not a money-saver when you don't have your own garden, it amuses me when people slant it that way. But what does it matter, if you can afford buying the ingredients and find it enjoyable? Just as I'll never understand why people enjoy watching football, people are free to not understand canning. But it's not going to ruin the world or anything.

Several letter writers have already hit the mark but it bears repetition: Sarah Karnasiewicz somewhat misses the point of canning. (And I know, she's trying not to miss the point — somehow, despite her thorough and certainly readable self-examination, she still misses it anyway.)

The idea is simply that, as biochemist puts it so well, when you have more cherries than you can eat, you can cherries. When you have a backyard full of mulberries, guess what you can then?

(In this respect, canned food is very much like that other great old form of long-term food storage — alcohol. You ferment what you've got.)

The idea is not to decide (as she and some other letter writers seem to see it) what would be "neat," "fun," or "cool," and then go find the ingredients.

Or, let's be fair — rather, if one is going to decide what to can on the basis of what is cool, will enhance one's foodie creds, or give one good currency for potlatching, one should not then go around complaining that, lo, and behold, canning has turned into yet another expensive bourgeois status symbol.

It's sort of like they say about dysfunctional relationships — the one thing all of your expensive transient upper-class dalliances with craft hobbies have in common ... is you.

I think the problem with this article is that Ms. Karnasiewicz is letting perfect be the enemy of good. There is no reason, even in NYC, that one should pay $8/quart for berries. If they cost that much, don't buy them to can them. Buy them to eat. Canning is what you do to have an overabundance last a very long time. $8/quart is not an overabundance.

Here's a better idea. if you have the time to can, then you have the time to jump on a train and head out to LI or up the Hudson valley and find a farmer's market that is local and has cheaper, more in-season produce. Can that.

Or, grow it yourself. Honestly, you don't need 20 acres of property. Last summer, I grew 6 tomato plants in a 10'x2' raised bed. Sure, they were a little close together, but I froze 6 dozen tomatoes, on top of the excess that my partner and I, and our friends, couldn't eat and ended up letting rot (on accident). A NYC fire escape with some long planters should hold 3-4 tomato plants, which you can eat now or can/freeze for later.

Canning, gardening and alot of other DIY projects are about making due with what you have, not going broke trying to acquire what you don't have.

Well, yeah, if you decide to buy gold-plated ingredients, you won't save any money on canning. I doubt anyone is surprised by this. The key, as pointed out, is to get the ingredients cheaply. For three dollars worth of seed and another few dollars worth of organic fertilizer, I grow and can enough tomatoes to last all year. You don't have to do that very long before you pay off even new canning jars, and it's pretty easy to get them used. For another buck or so worth of seed (plus some more money in olive oil, cheese, pine nuts, etc... which I can't produce myself) I make enough pesto to last all year.

Some folks have said that canning is pointless because you can just freeze stuff. I guess they have bigger freezers than I do - I can't freeze 30+ pints of tomato products and still have room for anything else. Plus frozen stuff won't last as long as canned - you end up throwing stuff out that's freezer-burnt.

I agree that jam is never going to be a big money saver, because you just can't use that much of it. Still, it can be worthwhile because you can make preserves that are higher quality than the store... if you can find them at all. Strawberry rhubarb? Can't be found at our local store. Apple butter? You can sometimes get it, but it's generally not all that good.

I don't think there's anything wrong with making fancy, expensive canned goods because you want to. But knocking canning as a money-waster is kind of silly - you certainly can save money if you do it right.