The only recipes allowed are from the Ball Blue Book (the one with the peaches on the cover ONLY) or the USDA guide.

Now I can understand, with the proliferation of Internet recipes for "canning", restricting entrants to recipes from approved sources. I have no problem with that at all.

I called and asked:
Q.Is the Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving (the big 400 page one) acceptable?
A. No.
Q. Nothing from the Joy of Pickling, Small Batch Preserving, Jamlady Cookbook, etc. and other canning books that state they follow USDA guidelines?
A. No.
Q. Recipes from State Extension Services?
A. No.

Needless to say, I won't be entering anything. Is it just me or do you all feel that the new regs are just a wee bit unreasonable and inflexible?

But until then I'd rather see this approach than the total lack of safety concerns they have exhibited in the past. And maybe some of that safety aspect will rub off on others who now have to actually read the guidelines rather than just do things the way they 'think' Grandma did it..

Dave

"The goal of our Home Canning Show rules is to make sure that the proper processing guidelines are followed for food safety reasons. We realize that the wording of the rules did not convey the correct message [and my note: neither did the folks that answered the phone who were probably just following orders] and our sincerest apologies to our Home Canning Show exhibitors for any confusion this may have caused. Adaption to a recipe is fine as long as jars are properly sealed and processed according to the guidelines as previously mentioned. We will also accept your own recipe as long as the correct processing procedure was followed for that product."

I guess they didn't get very many entries, so they even extended the deadline. We figured that would happen...