Emerie Brine is a Red Seal Certificate Chef and a Master Food Preserver, and the former Executive Chef and lead home food preserving instructor at Bernardin.
He was the public face of Bernardin for about 10 years, from 2008 to 2018, being immersed in promoting safe home canning using up-t0-date techniques based on research constantly being done by the Ball / Bernardin companies.
His website, https://www.emeriebrine.com/, explores safe, lab-tested recipes. He is available for teaching and demonstrations of canning.
He hails from a large Acadian, French-speaking family in New Brunswick, Canada, with traditional Acadian specialties such as poutines râpées regularly appearing on the family table.
Brine was a chef in the Royal Canadian Air Force for 3 years, worked for Kraft Foods as a Food Technician and Consumer Relations Associate, and earned his rank as a certified Red Seal Certificate Chef through 3,000 hours of kitchen training and experience. [1] Foodshare Recipe for Change 2010. Accessed May 2015 at foodshare.net. In 2015, he also completed a Master Food Preserver course at Cornell University.
Brine says canning was in his family and that he has canned since a child:
As a child, my family picked, pickled and canned every possible fruit and vegetable that we grew.” [2] Foodshare recipe for change 2010. Accessed May 2015 at foodshare.net.
My mother, who’s 75, has been canning ever since she got married at the age of 18 like her mother and grandmother did before her,” says Emerie Brine, consumer relations spokesperson for Bernardin Ltd., a home canning supply company. “We had a large family and lived on a farm, so anything you can imagine was canned. To this day, she cans everything because that’s just what she does.” [3] Wagner, Fiona. Enjoy the fruits of your labour through canning. Bankrate.com. September 2008. Accessed March 2015.
In a May 2011 interview with Fanny Kiefer in Vancouver, he mentions his mother’s pressure canner and that he overcame his fear of pressure canning when he was 20.
Brine says one of his goals is to adjust classic home canning recipes for contemporary tastes: “Now, with the abundance of herbs, spices and vinegars available, we can add some zip to traditional recipes, and create new taste combinations that will become family favourites.” [4] Foodshare recipe for change 2010. Accessed May 2015 at foodshare.net.
May 2011 interview with Emerie Brine, parts 1 and 2
References
Wally MOrrison
Hi Chef Emerie. I have been using a pressure cooker since the early sixties. Along the way I have experimented with various foods and ways of canning and freezing the completed product. The most annoying thing I found was scooping the finished product from the pot to the storage vessel , whether it was putting the food into a plastic baggie for freezing or into a jar for preserving. I wanted to bypass the funnel and go directly from the cooker canner to the storage container. I succeeded in solving the problem. In the early 90s I tried to contact Bernadin to see if they would like to talk to me about my idea and explore it but someone told me that they wouldn’t be interested because it was not their policy to look at ideas from outside the company. I tried to explain that my idea would eliminate the use of the funnel and generate more sales of your canning equipment and my new tool for handling the food products used by your customers. I am 71 years old and I still make 5 gallons of spaghetti sauce and the same of chilli and home style soups which I bag and freeze for myself and my extended family. My daughter uses my tool for all her canning projects and says she now wouldn’t be without it. I am from Cape Breton and currently live in the Halifax area and could meet with you if you should like to talk to me about my idea further. My phone number is 902-798-5953 ,regards, Wally Morrison