Judge John Hodgman - Cannery Row

Episode Date: March 28, 2012

THIS WEEK: Special Expert Witness Alton Brown! Ara and her mom Julia enjoy some mother-daughter bonding time while canning, but Ara insists on following USDA safety manuals, books, and other advice to make sure their canned goods are 100% safe. Julia says Ara's meticulous methods are driving her nuts, and they should rely on her own tried-and-true methods. WHO IS RIGHT?

Welcome to the Judge John Hodgman podcast. I'm bailiff Jesse Thorne. This week, cannery row. Ara and her mom Julia enjoy canning and preserving foods together as a hobby. Last fall, they spent days canning various apple-related goods like applesauce and apple butter. But Ara drove her mom crazy, consulting manuals in the internet on canning and insisting they follow the procedures to the letter. Ara says it's fun while being safe. Julia says Ara's

habits take the fun out of canning and her own years of experience canning should put her daughter at ease. Should Ara loosen up and follow her mom's lead? Or should Julia admit that safe food can only be achieved by following a manual? Only one man can decide. Please rise as Judge John Hodgman enters the courtroom. Good afternoon or good morning whenever you're listening. My name is

Judge John Hodgman. I'm about to open up a can of justice all over you people and also botulism. So get ready. Swear them in, Jesse. Please rise and raise your right hands. Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God or whatever? I do. I do. I do. Do you swear to abide by Judge John Hodgman's ruling

despite the fact that he has not eaten fresh food in over 14 years? I do. I do. I do. Very well. Judge Hodgman? Listeners may have heard an unusual voice, a male voice, given that the plaintiff and defendant are both women. The male voices are expert witness for the day,

because I know nothing about canning fresh foods. I know about opening cans of Spam and eating them with a spoon. But I don't know anything about canning fresh foods, so I decided to bring in an expert witness, a man who knows everything about what I do not know about, Mr. Alton Brown of television. Hello, Alton. How are you? I'm here, and I am good, and I'm sorry that I said, you know, I will or I do when it was her turn. I was just excited. I'm thrilled for two reasons.

One, it gave me an opportunity to introduce you right away because we're excited that you're here. And two, it means you're now under oath. So I am. I am under oath. I cannot lie now, even if I wanted to. Exactly. So. So Aira brings the case against her own mother. Which is kind of harsh. You think that she's too strict about how things get canned or you want to be more strict? I don't understand. Tell me how you do it. Well, I actually, I would like to be a bit more strict.

I like to be absolutely meticulous about procedures. So I like to sterilize everything very carefully, the jars, anything that touches the jar. I like to follow recipe and procedures. And I like a real clear stepwise process. And my mom's just really casual about it. And so, she does things really quickly, and she doesn't often think through the whole process before she gets started. And in fact, some of the things she does are actually contrary to sort of what I think of as important rules. And it's not just that she doesn't want to be as meticulous, but she just gives me a really hard time for trying to be procedural. So when we can together, like last time, it got quite tense.

And I mean, maybe, Mom, do you want to tell them how you tell me to get out of the box all the time? Wait a minute, wait a minute. Let me just understand here. Let's go back to the last time that the two of you were canning together and explain to our listeners at home who are not self-sufficient homesteaders what the heck it is you're doing.

You are gathering some kind of food and putting it into jars and keeping it until apocalypse? Right. Yeah, I mean, you're basically, jars and keeping it until apocalypse? Right. Yeah. I mean, you're basically, you make, you know, jams and chutneys. You make them from fresh foods and then you basically preserve them.

They last for a year or two. Well, we're talking about jams and chutneys specifically. That's your thing? Yeah. I mean, we've done salsa in the past. Also apple filling or apple pie filling. Pre-chewed foods, basically. Macerated foods, not whole foods. Not usually whole foods.

Yeah, it's cooked. They're cooked. Okay, so you cook up a bunch of stuff to a deliciously gross consistency. Put them into jars and then lay them down in the fruit cellar until you want to eat them, which is never. Is that more or less what's going on? No, we use them. I use them. I give them away for gifts. I give them to people for Christmas.

I have a baby, so I feed him applesauce. Okay. Well, all right. So you got to make sure that you're not feeding the baby tainted applesauce. Precisely. So mom, your name is Julia? It is. Do you mind if I call you mom? No, you can call me mom. That's good. Thank you. Mom, what is the process by which you... I don't want to hear about

cooking the applesauce because I get that. I know what cooking is all about. Say you've got a big bunch of fresh applesauce that you want to poison your baby with later. You tell me the process of getting it ready to lay down in the cellar. Okay. I take the jars initially and put them in a big pot of boiling water on a stove. initially and put them in a big pot of boiling water on the stove and on the side in a different pot goes the lids and the rims so to sterilize everything these are these are rubber rims that create an airtight seal on these bell jars that you get the at the hardware store or whatever right okay exactly and uh i boil them for approximately 20 minutes. Then one by one, I'll take them out and I fill it up.

Using your bare hands, right? You just reach right in. Because at this point, you're impervious to heat and cold because you're a mom, right? There's an actual canning tool that you use, like tongs, that will grab the jars, pull it out, fill the jar, then put the lid on, put your seal on, and put it back into the boiling water. And then I boil it for another 20 minutes with the food in it, which creates the seal, the vacuum, and then pull it out, and they cool. And I have always listened for the pop of the lids, because each one will actually do a pop when you hear it, or it indicates that it's a seal. And what is this? Do an imitation of that sound, please. Pop. I don't know. It's a can. How can I do an imitation? Well, we're calling it canning, but it's jarring. Is that not correct? True, true. But they do call it canning. They clearly call it canning.

Yeah, I know. People got dumb words for a lot of things, but I'm just making clear. But you're not putting anything into tin cans. No, they's their glass. Okay. Glass jars. Okay. Before you guys get into a fight and before I ask Alton to weigh in, Ara, if that is indeed your name, what is your mom doing wrong?

I actually have a list of some things that my mom does that I find a little bit problematic. It's a short list, but an important list. Let's do the top five. She sterilizes the jars, but not the utensils that she's using that might touch the tops of the rims of the jars. Like the special jar tong? Right, the special jar tong, the headspace tool. There's a number of other things that might touch the tops of the thing. Number one, doesn't sterilize the headspace tool. There's a number of other things that might touch the tops of the thing. Number one, doesn't sterilize the headspace tool. Duh, mom. All right, number two.

So she touches the tops of the jars with her hands or wipes them with whatever like paper towel or rag is sitting around after they've been sterilized. Mom, gross. I'm getting slammed here. I don't know if this is all true. Everyone gets a fair hearing. All right. So you're objecting? I'm objecting already. I mean, my utensils are clean.

What is the substance of your objection? Well, my utensils are clean. Are they sterilized? Well, I haven't boiled them, but, you know. Hang on, hang on. Period. Well, I haven't boiled them, but, you know, I don't know. Whoa, whoa, whoa. Hang on, hang on. Number one, there's rubber on the utensil that actually grabs the jars out. So, I don't think you're supposed to boil them.

But clearly, they go into boiling water. So, I think that in itself sterilizes them. Let's move on. Hold. Everyone hold. Go ahead. I throw in a technicality. A technicality between the differences between clean, sterilized, and sanitized.

And sanitized is only like 99.997% free of microbial life and that's considered the standard for canning. To sterilize would be to drop that down exponentially by another decimal point, which would take it into the realm of an operating theater, which is not really considered to be necessary. So the word sterilized is actually never really used in canning except at the commercial level. Okay, great. Thank you. So

sanitizing is what you're concerned about, Ara? Not sterilizing. Okay? Okay. So she uses recipes that don't specify jar sizes or the boiling times. Alton, you want to respond to that? She seems to have a problem. Point number three seems to be that she has a problem with her mother's lack of specificity in regards to jar size and actual processing time. The processing time being, again, that time that the closed vessel is submerged in the boiling kettle. Is that a reasonable concern? There's no simple answer to that. And the reason why is that it greatly depends upon the acidity level of the food. Yeah, this stuff just got real because I would be far more concerned about, say, green beans than I would say strawberry jam. Foods that are high in acid, most fruits, and also high in sugar, tend to not be fun for microbes. Microbial life simply doesn't like a low pH, which is high acidity. Most of the foods that they've been talking about putting up fall into that zone.

The one place where people can get a little bit into trouble is salsa because, believe it or not, the range of acidity in tomatoes, if it's a tomato-based salsa, is wide-ranging. You could make the same salsa, put up the same salsa for 20 years from, say, one farmer who provided the tomatoes and then change your tomato supply, make it the same way, and then end up in trouble because the acidity level would be different for, say, someone else's tomatoes, tomatoes from a different part of the country. I don't personally have a really big problem with the – let her finish her top five because I've got a couple of things. Okay. So, Ara, we heard so far poorly unsanitized headspace rack, right? Right. Unsanitized headspace tool.

Using recipes that don't specify the jar sizes or cook times. Right. She uses cornstarch, which it's my understanding that you're not supposed to use cornstarch anymore. What does she use cornstarch for? I think she uses it in apple pie filling. Is that right, mom? Yeah, it's a thickening agent.

What are you using as your data for condemning the use of the corn product? your data for condemning the use of the corn product? I think the USDA canning guide said that you should not use cornstarch as a thickener, that you should only use, I think, is it pectin that you're supposed to use? Why would that be? Do they say that that's from a performance standpoint or from a sanitation standpoint? I think it's from a sanitation standpoint because cornstarch doesn't allow the heat to penetrate as easily. Where do you read that, Ara? It's in the USDA guide to canning. Or it might even be in the dummies guide. I mean, I can- Well, then I'm certain that you have brought that in your evidence packet and can share that

with the court. I have read almost every USDA page available in this dimension or any other dimension. I've never run across that. So please upload that to us now so that we may review. I'll look for that right now. I'll take a gander. You have to go look for it. You're quoting materials you don't have?

Talk about lack of technical proficiency. You've come to court without your stuff. Yeah. I bet you don't even have Talk about lack of technical proficiency. You've come to court without your stuff. I bet you don't even have a number two pencil. You guys thought you were going to get nice, softy Judge John Hodgman today. The guy who just talks about how everyone should love one another and get along and how cute it is

that mom and daughter are canning together. But there's something at stake here. Food safety. Alton Brown isn't going to stand for it. Alton, I just want to say that she's reading from canning for dummies, meaning, I don't know, the operative word being dummies. Can I ask you, ma'am, while she's busy looking this up, we still haven't heard her two other complaints, but I want to know right now, what is the age differential between you and your daughter?

Approximate. 20 years. And how many years of successful canning would you say you have under your belt? 20 years. And how many years of successful canning would you say your daughter has under her belt? Years? Yes, ma'am. She's only canned twice.

Very well. So we're going to say that the ratio is approximately 20 years to 0.2 years. Very good. Yes. During the 20 years that you have been canning, how many foodborne illnesses have resulted from the products that you have put up? And please be honest because we can always find out the truth if you don't give it to us. Zero. No one has ever gotten sick. Is a person who has used traditional means, probably family procedures that have been handed down traditionally. You have employed those for over 20 years resulting in zero illnesses. That's not true. We totally accidentally poisoned one of my friends. Oh, you poisoned one of your friends. The applesauce just got real now, didn't it? Yeah. Well, the applesauce got thick and stinky. So please tell us, because obviously there seems to be a discrepancy between no one getting sick and someone getting sick. What was the

resulting illness and from what product did it, was it rendered? So the first time that we ever canned together was about 10 years ago. So that's actually 10 years of canning experience that I have, not just twice in 10 years. Yeah. Twice. No, I've canned numerous times. What are you talking about? Is the number two? can numerous times. What are you talking about? Is the number two? It is, believe me. No, I've probably canned maybe five or six times.

Just to clarify, you've canned two times together, and then, Ara, you're doing some private canning on the side with your scientist friends. You're doing some molecular canning with Nathan Myhrvold on the side, where there are no fights over cornstarch or clear gel, correct? Right. All right. Tell me, tell the court, this dual tribunal, who was the friend who got sick because of the applesauce? It was actually not applesauce. We canned a huge thing of salsa. And my mom, I think, was fairly new to canning at the time. And we put in the salsa corn and cilantro and other vegetables. And she was uneasy about doing that at the time,

but couldn't explain to me why we wouldn't add other vegetables to the tomato salsa. And so we had a huge batch of it. And then I had a friend that stayed over just a week or two later and ate a ton of the salsa and got quite sick from what I came to think of as a tainted batch. Okay, she's leaving out one really important part of that story. Was that you had added poison? No, that her friend drank a case of beer while eating a whole jar of salsa. That's not true. Frankly, if you drink that much and eat a can or a whole jar of salsa, anyone's going to get sick. I need to hear about the symptoms. If you could please give me the rundown on how quickly the illness onset came from ingestation and what were the symptoms? Well, first of all, he started flirting with everybody. And then he wanted to listen to music.

I also want to know, was this a boyfriend? No, it was not. It's my best friend's boyfriend, now husband. Okay, so back to symptoms and onset, please. So he had eaten several jars, like numerous jars, maybe four or five jars of salsa over the course of a couple of days. And he got very, very sick within, I would say, I mean, the next morning, like he had been staying at our house for a couple of days. And the morning after his last batch of salsa, he started just vomiting really bad. And he continued to vomit, I think, for a good 24 or 48 hours. And to my knowledge, that was his only

symptom, just really profuse vomiting. How long had this salsa been in its vessels at the time of consumption? How long had it been? A couple weeks, maybe, not more than a month, certainly. Why were you uneasy about this? As far as process or the salsa itself? Erin says that you seem to be uneasy about it. My recipe didn't call for cilantro and corn. So, of course, while Erin and I are making my salsa, her husband, of course, sitting on his laptop is chirping in the background. I want fresh corn in there. And I said, look, you know, we don't put corn in salsa. You do that later. put corn in salsa you you do that later no you said i'm not sure i i i don't know no i clearly he says but you didn't say like hey corn is less acidic so that's oh no i didn't i didn't have any scientific reason i just said you know you put that in when you serve it later you you add your you know your corn the night you're serving it and But nope, he said, I want all the flavors to cook together. I want the cilantro.

So, of course, who does there listen? And that's why you poisoned him then? You were so angry. No, I didn't. No one was poisoned. All right. And also some fresh hemlock. How about that?

As a garnish. I got to say that I'm sympathetic to your argument there. As soon as I heard the guy was sitting at home drinking beer and eating whole jars of salsa. He was not drinking beer. He had some wine the night before, and we went out for Afghani food, but he did not. Oh, hold on. Hold the heck on. I feel like I'm watching an episode of Law & Order.

There's a twist every second. She's kind of like, you know, and then we handled serpents for a while. I mean, wait a second. So now you're throwing your mom under the bus for a guy that ate a jar of salsa, drank some unknown amount of liquor, and then had some Afghani food? He didn't just eat a jar of salsa, though. He ate like six jars of salsa. But my point was that it was too suspicious. Wait a minute.

In what frame, time frame did he eat six jars of salsa? They were small jars, and it was over a course of a couple of days. He's an eater. Okay. Well, you know, this case is far too jarble upon this one instance to render judgment other than your husband should butt out, stay off his laptop, and mind his own business. He's clearly the instigator of the problem here. Let me ask. Husbands with laptops, always trouble.

Clearly, this entire anecdote has contaminated itself as evidence. But I just want to make sure I understand what's going on here. So, Eri, your argument is that the boyfriend of a friend ate a bunch of this salsa after drinking a lot of beer, having a lot of wine, eating a lot of Afghani food, and maybe treating his cataracts with some medical cannabis, and then got very, very sick. And, Mom, your defense is that, A, everyone else who ate it did not get sick. B, he was eating too much of it, and he's a terrible glutton. And, C, was he the one who requested corn be put in the salsa? No, it's Erez's husband. Erez's husband. Okay. Correct. But why would

you bring up the issue of corn being in the salsa if your statement is that the salsa itself was untainted? It sounded like you were saying, maybe because he asked me to alter the recipe, it might have, something might have happened. No, that was Ara's. She called me and said, after I read, we went on the internet. I think we made people sick because we put corn in there. I was just telling her, hey, my salsa recipe that I've used for years, I always add corn or fresh cilantro when I serve it. You don't jar it. But they didn't want to listen to me. This is an incredibly important learning moment, which is simply recipes that have proven themselves to be safe and tasty in the canning realm should not be screwed with.

Exactly. Because if you do go and screw with them, then you are going to have to break out the lab books. When you start to make those kinds of changes, especially to something like salsa, where you're involving some low acid foods and some foods that could already be potentially contaminated, though I don't really believe that your salsa made this guy sick. I just don't buy it. But if you are going to argue that traditional know-how, as opposed to scientific accumulation of knowledge and application of that knowledge,

that the traditional ways are just as good, you can't monkey with them. You've got to stick with what you know works and what you know is safe. You shouldn't have added the corn, and works and what you know is safe. You shouldn't have added the corn. And the cilantro is also a little suspect. I still don't think that that did it, but you shouldn't do it. Ara, if your husband demands corn in his salsa, which, by the way, is disgusting to begin with, and your mom is making it, and she's got 20 years of experience making a thing of folkloric canning uh expertise in her head maybe all she can say is i don't think that's going to work

that should be the end of it you talked about uh the the headspace tool you talked about touching it with your hands talked about talked about this issue of the tainted corn. The jar sizes and cook times. The jar sizes and cook times. You threw out some faint about cornstarch. Is there anything else that I'm missing? Yeah, I mean, there's that she doesn't pay any attention to headspace and that she keeps the screw tops on the lids when storing the jars. And neither of those are quite as important, but I still like to follow those guidelines when I can.

Where are you getting the guidelines from? You know, websites. Canning for dummies. The internet. The internet. The USP for canning and the canning for dummies. I have to say. Are these true?

Are these true? Do you not include a headspace in your, I don't use a ruler and she wanted to get the ruler out or she did. And she was actually measuring every jar. And I, I, I mean, I can, I can see your guess what a half inch is. And you don't even, you don't even try to monitor that mom you didn't even know what headspace was you were feeling your apple saw or your um apple pie filling up maybe i didn't know the terminology headspace i just didn't use headspace but i certainly knew you don't fill it up all the way to the top and again she – there was no fun involved. I mean, now we're – Order, order, order.

John, as a tentacle point, John, headspace is the area left open at the top of the jar. It's usually about half an inch of air. What's important about that is that during the processing, the boiling, is that air expands, bubbles out, and then when the jar is cool, you hear a popping sound as the air that remains contracts, creating a vacuum. That is what actually holds the seal. And in this case, I think that what you were using were probably the metal lids that have the rubber strip around the inside, not the floppy ones. So that what happens is that vacuum pressure is what creates the seal that actually hermetically seals the jar. And strict traditionalists would then remove the screw-on retaining ring because it can rust

and can be responsible for corrosion around that seal area. So typically, the canners in my family, at least, would never leave those retention rings on during storage because they don't actually hold the lid on. Vacuum pressure holds the lid on. So that's the headspace story. Thank you very much, Elton. I'm not a moron, but I didn't know those things, so thank you. I have to say that when you guys wrote in, I was concerned that maybe this was not really a point of contention between you, but a simple disagreement, and you were just looking to get on a podcast. Now, I'm miles and miles away from you via Skype, and I'm afraid I'm going to be hit with a Headspace tool. This is much more contentious

than I imagined it being. So I have to ask, Mom, how does it make you feel when your daughter critiques your canning methods? Most of the time, I don't listen to her. I just keep going and she keeps chirping and then it gets to bickering back and forth. And I just keep moving forward. Do you throw away things that your mom cans because you think it's going to make your girlfriend's boyfriend sick after he eats a bunch of Afghani food? The salsa is the only thing I've ever thrown away. But just to be clear, like I've never thrown anything else away other than that salsa. But just to be clear, like it's not just me sort

of critiquing my mom, like that's going both ways. So like I'm trying to use the little headspace ruler and she's sort of like, you know, she's got commentary about that going the whole time. And if I refer to my recipe book, she's she's she critiques that so that the critique is is mutual. It's not just me sniping about her lack of sanitary procedures. No, I fully trust the critique is mutual. That's pretty clear. That's pretty clear. But what do you think is stopping you guys from taking the best of what you each have to offer, mom, from your folkloric years of expertise, witches brewing, and from your witchy folkloric expertise and era, what you have to bring from the Internet and to create the best of both worlds situation where you guys can happily enjoy your canning bee without yelling at each other. Well, we don't really yell at each other.

You do. I'm telling you right now you do. Oh, no, we do. Because she had a friend over one night when we were actually canning the apple butter that night. And her friend was ready to leave because she thought it was getting so tense. And Ara had to tell her, you know, we're really not fighting. So, yeah, yes, we do. Well, everything we do sounds a little bit intense.

I mean, it's not like this is some out of, I mean, you know, we just sound intense, but it's not actually. I mean, it's not like this is some out. I mean, you know, we just sound intense, but it's not. No, it's clear. It's clear. You guys have have a lot of bickery affection for one another. But I'm telling you, as an outside observer, it's tense. Let me tell you right now, we're going to resolve this for you.

And the way we're going to do it is I'm really glad that we have Alton here who actually knows what he's talking about for once. Because what Alton is going to do, we're going to go into chambers and we're going to smoke some barbecue as men do. And drink some bourbon. And drink some bourbon and pound some Afghani food. And then throw up for a while. And then Alton's going to come back and tell you he's going to have the perfect mix of folklore. Or I should—folklore is not correct, right, Alton? You just say culinary heritage and tradition and science, to make sure that you guys have a third

way canning technique that you can both stipulate to so that you don't fight with each other quite as much. And then you can focus on, I don't know, how you whip cream. Alton and I will retire to chambers. We'll be back in a moment. rise as judge john hodgman exits the courtroom julia what what do you think can can you see a way forward in canning sure yeah we'll do it again i don't i don't know i don't know that we will make any headway but yeah why not maybe she'll be maybe we'll have a little more fun. Maybe we can have a cocktail when we're doing it and we can put the rulers and the computers and the books away and just have fun. Maybe you guys should just have a case of beer and some salsa.

Really, we could just eat the salsa and the beer or drink the beer. Yeah. Well, Julia Era, I wish you the best. I have high hopes for this hearing. I got to get over to the chambers to chat with John and our listeners about the Max Fund Drive. So we'll talk to you in a couple of minutes. Okay. You're listening to Judge John Hodgman. I'm bailiff Jesse Thorne. Of course, the Judge John Hodgman podcast always brought to you by you, the members of Maximum Fun dot org. Thanks to everybody who's gone to Maximum Fun dot org slash join. And you can join them by going to Maximum Fun dot org slash join.

can join them by going to MaximumFun.org slash join. The Judge John Hodgman podcast is also brought to you this week by our pals over at Made In. Jesse, you've heard of Tom Colicchio, the famous chef, right? Yeah, from the restaurant Kraft. And did you know that most of the dishes at that very same restaurant are made with made-in pots and pans? Really? What's an example? The braised short ribs.

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I'm pretty gosh darned excited about a new enhanced e-book that I'm working on that is going to encapsulate some fantastic new technical software kind of stuff. So that's pretty cool. And this will be an e-book version of one of your many award-winning Good Eats books? This is brand spanking new stuff. So that's pretty cool. And this will be an ebook version of one of your many award-winning good eats books. This is brand new stuff. Brand spanking new stuff. Oh, fantastic. And will it be across all platforms or for the iOS platform only? We're working that out. That's the big mystery. When can we see that, do you think? I'm thinking spring of next year. I can't wait to see

it. So I have to say I admire your candor, Mom. I think you clearly are a straight shooter in everything you do. Even when you are a little bit angry and frustrated, you certainly get it out. And I hope that that leads to a productive fighting and then crying with white wine with your daughter afterwards. In any case, it's clear that you both love each other, and I don't want you to fight unless it's just one of the ways you enjoy communicating with each other, in which case go at it. eating the canned goods that you guys put down together, and to make sure that you feel comfortable that your daughter is learning the true art of canning. We need to stipulate to a system that is both earthy and fun and easygoing and speaks to the culinary heritage and your experience and also makes your daughter feel perfectly safe in what's happening.

So I'm going to leave the final critique and judgment to our very special expert witness, Alton Brown. Ladies, I'm simply going to refer to you as mother and daughter because it's an important association and is perhaps the focal point of this entire dispute, is that we have a learned mother and a daughter who is still learning. I'm all about science. I adore science. I've made a career out of science and cooking. But I must say that in this case, the daughter's only real case for any mistrust is based upon only real case for any mistrust is based upon the sickening of a potentially alcoholic salsa chugging Afghan food munching interloper of a salsa that was meddled with by another party, by yet another third party, a fourth party being a husband. So I think that we have to throw

out that entire incident because it's simply too corrupt to bear any consideration here. My suggestion is that we look at history. People have been canning and putting up for thousands of years, actually millennia, depending on the anthropologist that you talk to. The For Dummies book series is by contrast a relatively new development, as is the internet and the laptop computer. My suggestion is, daughter, why don't you just learn for a while from your mom? Canning is a great tradition. She probably has a lot to teach you. Why don't you just relax and learn from her? Put down the ruler, close your computer, and just go can some food. This is a food way that was meant to be

passed from generation to generation. You are attempting to skip over that by trusting a zillion strangers, most of which are morons on a computer. Don't trust them. Trust your mother. I think that that's what is deeply going on here is that for some reason, you don't trust your mother and you guys have to work that out. But as far as the food, this is a heritage-based food way passed from generation of women to generation of women. and you would be really, really missing something if you attempted to mar that with your modern technology and the supposed knowledge of strangers. And the USDA? Yes, and the USDA, which I must tell you is run by what? Who runs it?

Are you asking me who runs it? I'm asking you. Who runs the USDA? The United States government. Uh-huh. Well, bingo. So you're going to trust the United States government over your mother. Think about that long and hard young lady. Cause I would like for you to name one thing that has to do with food that the federal government has actually made better in your lifetime. Yeah, you have a good point there, actually.

You know, very often when we start bringing a lot of science to the party, we move beyond what is reasonable into what is infallible. And the margin for, you know, a potential problem between what is reasonable and that other kind of X factor is typically just not real world that we're talking about. Now, if we were cooking for astronauts, if we were putting up salsa to go to the space station to feed people in those kind of conditions, or if we were shipping this off to the home for immune deficiency seniors, we would probably up the ante with our sanitation. But I don't get that that's what mom is doing here. Mom is simply canning the way she's canned for years, probably the way her mom canned for years and her mother before that.

And I think that as long as they stick to the program and don't take husband's ideas for, I want corn in my salsa, everything will be okay. That was an uncanny impersonation, by the way, of every husband. Well, I've heard a lot of husbands sitting with computers screaming at cooks to add things that shouldn't be there. By the way, once you add corn into that, it starts to really become more of a chow chow than a salsa anyway. Well, judgment has been rendered.

I was thinking that this would be some sort of synthesis procedure, but I think Alton has taken a very strong stance. Do it your mom's way. So, this is the sound. Unless the bodies start piling up in the neighborhood, yes. The issue, and I'm not even sure there was an issue. The alleged issue was that that recipe was messed with before your drunk Afghan friend decided to chug three jars.

Which, I mean, I would have blown chunks too, okay? And it wouldn't have mattered. So I think that you can continue to make that salsa. Let me put it this way. I will make sure that you get my address so that you can send me a jar of that salsa, which I will sit down and eat with great pleasure. And then we're going to go out for Afghan food in a case of course, and I'm going to get sick in the parking lot. But the tomatoes, a different variety of tomatoes might change the acidity, right? Do I understand that correctly?

Yes, it could. Because tomatoes like to trick you because they're the fruit of the deadly nightshade. They are a member of the deadly nightshade family right along with the eggplant. But I would say that if she has made it for years and years and years successfully, I would say just continue to make it exactly precisely that way. Mom, the one thing that I would say is perhaps you would allow your daughter to bring a recipe from out on her side of the world into the kitchen and you guys could also make that together. That's just a thought. That's fine. You know, but I don't think that, daughter, you should be criticizing your mom's tried-and-true methods.

Well, I admire the candor that you guys share with each other. The candor, get it? Because I'm a punsmith? Candor. Nicely done, Judge. Got it. Well, thank you very much, Alton, for weighing in on that. I think we all learned something.

And this is the sound of a gavel. Judge John Hodgman rules. I am now going to go back into my chambers and spray it down with bleach. That is all. Thank you guys so much. Thank you, Eric. Thank you, Julia. Thank you, Alton, for helping out.

Thank you for your macaroni and cheese recipe that convinced my in-laws that I'm a cooking genius. Well, good, good. Okay. Okay. Thank you very much. Well, good, good. Okay. Okay, thank you very much. I have to admit, Judge Hodgman,

I was somewhat starstruck to have the great Alton Brown in our courtroom. I can't hear you over the pressure spray of bleach. What? Hang on, let me turn this off. What? I said I was somewhat starstruck to have the great Alton Brown in our courtroom. What a wonderful guy. Oh, me too. You know, I met Alton Brown when I was a magazine writer,

and he was already a famous major television personality as we drove through the South from Georgia, from Atlanta, Georgia, to Oxford, Mississippi together. And it was an amazing time. He was as opinionated and also as right about everything we saw on that trip. And I was really glad to have him on the show and lay down some real law. That sounds like a really tasty trip. Speaking of tasty, I'm eating tartar sauce with my hands. Do you think that's bad?

Speaking of tasty, I'm eating tartar sauce in my hands. Do you think that's bad? Well, I mean, the fact that you're taking it out of your pockets is a little bit questionable to me. Well, I thought the lint would sanitize it. You think a lot of things. You want to clear the docket? Here's something from Aaron. My friend Ben and I can't agree on whether or not salt is a food. He says salt is a mineral used as a food seasoning or food preservative. He believes there's a distinction between food and mineral and not everything we consume meets the quote food bar unquote. I say any substance we consume that provides nutritional support to the body is food. We ingest salt and it helps to regulate the

fluid balance of the body and to produce electrical electrical signaling in the nervous system. And therefore it is a food who is right. Uh, Alton Brown isn't here. So I can say whatever I want. Right, Jesse.

And that's absolutely correct. That's the, that's the, what the USDA rules. Uh, no, I'm not going to say that salt is a food. I would say that, uh, while it is a mineral and something that aids the body, it is not nourishment

in the traditional sense, and therefore it does not meet the food bar. Indeed, you would never even see it stocked at the food bar. It would be at the condiments bar. So there. Meet me at the food bar later, though. I'm condiments bar. So there. Meet me at the food bar later, though. I'm going to get myself a big heaping plate of ambrosia salad. Here's something from Holly. My husband and I can't agree on butter storage. We do usually store it in the fridge, but I like to leave one stick out on the counter so it's soft when I want

to use it. If I do this, I use up the butter within three or four days. My husband insists that you cannot leave butter out. He doesn't have any more cogent arguments. He just says you can't in a louder and more exasperated fashion the more I ask why not. Well, I think it's right to store butter longer term in the fridge. It's perfectly safe to leave a stick of butter out for a few days as long as it is used within a reasonable amount of time. This is how butter was handled in the house I grew up in, and I have made it this far. Furthermore, butter was invented before the refrigerator, so it's not necessary to refrigerate it.

How should butter be stored? Butter actually goes rancid maybe a little bit quicker than you think, and you will know that it is rancid when it has an off and bitter taste and a strong smell. That's when the fat oxidizes. But indeed, you are right, butter does not need to be refrigerated. If it is being consumed within two or three days, you should be absolutely fine. You can also keep it out on the counter using a mechanism called a butter bell, which creates a water seal and keeps the butter a little bit cooler, but also spreadable. It will last a long time in the refrigerator, of course, and maybe

that's what the point of dispute is, a lot longer. But if you do keep it in the refrigerator, be sure to keep it wrapped up well. Otherwise, it will take on off flavors from other disgusting foods that you have lying around in there. Hello, teachers and faculty. This is Janet Varney. I'm here to remind you that listening to my podcast, The JV Club with Janet Varney, is part of the curriculum for the school year. Learning about the teenage years of such guests as Alison Brie, Vicki Peterson, John Hodgman, and so many more is a valuable and enriching experience, one you have no choice but to embrace, because, yes, listening is mandatory. The JV Club with Janet Varney is available every Thursday on Maximum Fun or wherever you get your podcasts. Thank you.

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