One of my most vivid childhood memories is that of my mother attempting to use a very large pressure canner she had purchased at the Base Exchange. It was the late 60s and pressure cooking was all the rage among the military wives of West Germany.

Mom was trying to make a large batch of spaghetti and meat balls in the new canner. She browned the meatballs and placed them carefully in the bottom. She added her tomatoes and sauce, seasoned the whole thing to perfection, then tried to put the lid on.

This was the first indication of trouble. She and my father began fumbling with the new contraption. She was having problems getting the lid to lock into place. After a few awkward attempts Dad finally forced it on for her.

Mom ordered me and my two little brothers into the living room. My job was to keep the boys busy and away from the kitchen.

She turned on the stove, put the pressure regulator on the canner and waited.

I remember being uneasy with the first fits of steam coming from the kettle. The hissing and rattling seemed threatening to me as a seven-year-old. I could hear my mom's voice becoming high pitched with concern.

"Is that right? Is it supposed to do that?"

Dad kept telling her, "It's fine, it's fine."

Something in his voice sounded uncertain.

The next sound I remember is the sound of violent tearing. That was when the gasket blew. It sounded as if something vicious had been released from the canner.

I ran to the doorway of our white kitchen where I saw the complete unraveling of my parents-not to mention the canner and its contents. This was the first time I had ever seen anyone panic.

At the same time the gasket had blown, the pressure regulator had flown off making a large indentation in the ceiling. Copious amounts of spaghetti sauce and liquefied meatballs were raging out of the vent pipe on the lid as well as from the side where the gasket gave.

Make sure you use the proper equipment for your purpose. A pressure cooker is shown above, while a pressure canner is shown below.

My mother stood screaming and looking at the punctured ceiling. My father was cursing wildly as he desperately tried to get a hold of the canner to move it off the stove. He couldn't get close enough to grab it or turn off the heat because of the onslaught of blistering hot spaghetti sauce.

When I saw the red sauce all over everything I thought it was blood and started to scream. My brothers, who were still in diapers, waddled to the scene and begin to wail at the top of their lungs along with me.

It seemed to take forever for the spaghetti sauce shower and the ear splitting screams to end. No one was seriously injured, although Dad did have some burns on his hands and wrists from trying to move the canner off the stove. We were all stunned, especially my mom, who to this day, has never touched another pressure canner.

Needless to say, Mom and Dad made a few mistakes.

The first mistake they made was in purchasing a pressure canner, when what they really wanted was a pressure cooker. Mom tells me she had no intention of ever canning with it. They should have determined what their needs were before buying. Pressure canners are larger than pressure cookers. Cookers are made for preparing food. Canners are for cooking and canning so they have a larger capacity.

The second mistake was not reading the instructions. Mom readily admits that neither of them did. They only scanned through them.

It is important to thoroughly read the instructions for your canner. It doesn't matter if you are a beginner or a Master Food Preserver-read the instructions and be sure you understand them. It is a good idea to review the instructions every year.

Neither of them did a visual inspection of the canner before they used it. It is important to check over the canner before you use it for the first time and every time you use it. Make sure the gasket is in good shape and check to make sure the vent pipe is clear.

It is possible that the vent pipe on Mom's canner became blocked by packaging material or food. The vent pipe allows steam to escape. This keeps the pressure inside the canner at a certain level. If the steam cannot escape at the proper rate the pressure can build and the gasket can fail. She should have checked the vent pipe to make sure it wasn't blocked before the lid was secured.

Forcing the lid onto the canner was truly a bad idea. Never, ever do that. If the vessel won't close properly do not continue the canning process. Go back to the instructions. If you can't identify the problem or need help, call the manufacturer or your local extension office.

To make matters worse, I suspect my mother over-filled the canner. The sheer volume of sauce and meat that came shooting out was overwhelming. Not only did it cover everything, there was about an inch of it on the floor.

The capacity of the canner is the capacity of the canner-period. Adding more liquid than necessary to complete the process is dangerous.

During the canning process some of the liquid in the pressure canner is converted to steam, which creates pressure within the canner. As pressure increases so does temperature: 5 pounds pressure-228Fº, 10 pounds pressure-240Fº, 15 pounds pressure-250º F. If there is more liquid in the canner than the manufacturer prescribes, the pressure and temperature in the vessel will rise quickly. This could cause the gasket to fail.

Mom didn't let steam out of the vent pipe before putting the pressure regulator on. A visible, unbroken trail of steam should be coming from the vent pipe for 10 minutes before the pressure regulator is put on. This forces the air out of the canner. Trapped air can cause temperature and pressure fluctuations, which can cause the canner to malfunction.

My mother-in-law gave me my first pressure canner. It was a very old one with wooden handles. It looked just like the one my mother had destroyed the kitchen with when I was a child. I tried to appear grateful, but just looking at thing unnerved me.

Thankfully, she also included the instruction booklet with the canner. I spent the afternoon reading and re-reading the instructions. I was determined to conquer my fear and learn how to use the thing.

That determination paid off. Today I enjoy canning a variety of foods. Canning has become an integral part of our harvest tradition and I wouldn't have it any other way.

Jerri Cook is a Wisconsin Master Food Preserver. She has served her community as a Master Gardener and a Master Compost Instructor. Ms. Cook is an experienced market gardener and is committed to Community Supported Agriculture. She lives in the Northwoods of Wisconsin with her family.