You can't eat a quince fresh off the tree. Actually, Diane Burdick, co-director of the Skaneateles Farmers Market, said not many people even know what it is. Many farms used to grow them, but the practice has almost died off.

The small yellow fruit is very hard to bite into and beyond that, extremely tart, she said.

“A lemon is sweet compared to a quince,” Burdick said. “But the juice comes out beautiful.”

Burdick makes her own quince juice, canning it using a cold packing system. She makes jam with the fruit the same way.

“You can can anything,” Burdick said, who also does peaches, pears, tomatoes, grape juice, pie filling and many varieties of jams and jellies among others.

She's been canning as long as she can remember - something she learned from her mother and grandmother.

“And it'll last for years.”

Cold packing is one way to can fresh produce. It is a system of pouring hot liquid into a jar filled with fruit or vegetables and after the lids are placed, letting it process for about 20 minutes as it cools down, Burdick explained. The jar will then seal when the lid makes a popping sound and can then be put on the shelf for later use.

Using a pressure cooker is another way to can. Pressure cookers can speed up the process for canning vegetables, which take much longer to process than fruit, but because Burdick said there is the added risk of explosion with pressure cookers, she opts to freeze her vegetables.

“Green beans can take anywhere from four and a half to five hours to process,” she said. “Who today has four and a half to five hours?”

She typically cans her produce once a year as the produce comes in season. Burdick also picks all her own fruit - like peaches.

“They're coming on right now,” she said adding that the number of jars she makes just depends on how much fruit is available.

With the peaches, Burdick said she'll make her own very light syrup from sugar and water. Once this is brought to a boil, she uses it as the liquid in the cold packing process.

When she does tomatoes, the juice makes itself as it processes, she said, and she only has to add a small amount of salt.

One of the main things Burdick said she enjoys is being able to govern exactly what goes into not only her tomatoes, but also pie fillings, pickles and essentially everything she makes.

“To me it's a shame more people don't can anymore,” she said. “Except for the time it takes, it's so much cheaper and worth it. You know exactly what's in there; it's healthier. Especially if you get your produce at the farmers market, you know the grower and where it came from. Maybe we can get young people canning again.”

Burdick actually uses the tomato juice she cans as soup.

“It's thick enough to just pour out and heat up,” she said. “And I don't have to buy Campbell's.”

She said lifestyle changes probably are the main reason nobody really cans anymore.

“Even at the (farmers) market, people will buy something like potatoes by the quart for $3. They're paying $90 to $100 for a bushel,” she said. “Where as they could get a bushel for much much less and just can it.”

Likewise, because so many people purchase canned goods at the grocery story, she said the younger generations are learning not to like fruits and vegetables because they don't know what “real food,” as Burdick puts it, tastes like. Using fruits or vegetable that have been canned or frozen are just as good as fresh, she said.

“If people canned and cooked with the fresh stuff, I think kids would like how it tastes and they would eat it,” she said.

Staff writer Laura Boyce can be reached at 253-5311 ext. 236 or at laura.boyce@lee.net