The prompt for this week is "preserve". It can have many meanings, but the one my sister and I thought of is to preserve food. Canning. Before modern marvels like freezing vegetables and fruit immediately after being picked or being able to buy canned food at the local supermarket, our ancestors had to can and preserve their own food. Making preserves allowed them to be able to eat fruits, vegetables, and meat through the harsh, long winters. It also saved all the fresh fruit and veggies that couldn't be eaten at harvest time. Our ancestors were lucky as since they lived on farms they could grow, harvest, and can their own preserves. They didn't have to buy from a grocer. They had a ready supply of fresh food that people who lived in big cities didn't always have access to.
I asked my dad if he remembered his own mother (Lois Ashley Thompson) canning, and he said she wasn't really into canning. He remembered her doing some canning, but not a lot. He remembered his grandmother Ashley (Emily Dobbratz Ashley) was very big into canning. When she passed away, he remembered cleaning out the cellar with many jars of fruit preserves. The Ashleys lived on a big farm and had lots of different crops.
I also asked my mom if she remembered her mother canning preserves. Interestingly, she and my dad both remembered grandma Henrickson (Viola Strand Henrickson) making canned beef that tasted delicious. When Ray Henrickson would slaughter a steer, Viola would cut up the beef and can it. Later during the winter, Viola would make beef and gravy and mashed potatoes. She'd use the canned beef in the gravy. Poured over the mashed potatoes. Both my parents remembered this dish fondly. :)
Viola would also get help from her mother, Mildred Bellinger Strand. Mildred would come to Viola's kitchen and the two of them would can peaches and make strawberry preserves. They would be stored down in the cellar, which kept the items cool. I remember going down there with grandma one day in the cellar. It was one of the scariest places I'd been. lol. Very dark, and definitely cooler than the upstairs.
The only memory I have of preserving food is one summer I was visiting Ray and Viola and grandma was making homemade pickles. She told me she was using special cucumbers to pickle. I tasted one and decided it was much better than any pickle I had eaten up to that point from a jar. It was so crisp and tasty.
Mom remembered that Viola and Mildred would use wax over the preserves and the jars would make a popping sound when they were set. She also remembered them canning tomatoes. They would all be eaten during the winter months. Everything tasted good.
Do you have any memories of eating homemade canned food, or helping to can? Leave them down below in the comments, please. That's all for this week.
Now I don’t remember grandma Stand coming over to help can at all. I remember covering the entire kitchen table with newspapers when we canned/froze corn. It seemed like it took all day. Also I know ma liked freezer jam better cooked jam. I think she was over cooking in the later years. I do remember the cooked meat it was the best ever
ReplyDeleteThat canned beef must've been something else for everyone to remember it so well.
DeleteOh canning! I remember the bread and butter pickles and dill pickles that both Grandma Strand and my mom Joyce made. I remember the smell of the pickles on Grandma's porch curing in those old fashioned crocks every summer. The other side of eating the canned foods, was the picking of everything from the gardens. Fruits and vegetables. Homemade applesauce, tomatoes, pickles, canned pears & peaches, homemade jam (canned or frozen), green beans and corn. We had a whole cupboard in the basement that held jars and jars of food. As a kid I only remember helping a bit such as scooping out the tomatoes and peeling off the skins and then stirring up the big caldrons of tomatos. It was hot, itchy and hard work. To think that until the 1970's all of our fruits and veggies over the winter was from stuff that Mom put up from our and grandma's gardens. AMAZING! It was so much work too! and Mom did all of it by herself! Only now after I've tried canning a little bit myself do I really appreciate the work that went into that. both raising those huge gardens and then putting up all the food. I think our generation was probably the last one that will hear the saying "go down in the basement and bring up a jar of tomatoes " . How much better was all of that food that was canned by the women in our families than the preservative laden stuff we get at the store now?
ReplyDeleteAgree! All those fruits and veggies had to be better. They were fresh and homegrown and without the chemicals and preservatives. No one really has time to do it now. But think about all the money saved that they didn't have to spend on food.
DeleteYes! Mildred’s bread & butter pickles!! I also was very afraid of going down into the root cellar to get them. It was so dang scary! We forget that refrigerators were really new. I remember my dad putting in a fancy new range for Mildred and it was a big deal. (He also put in a microwave and she never used it!) The taste of those jarred foods and icy cold water straight from the well are memories I’m grateful to have.
ReplyDeleteI remember tasting the water from the well. So cold! I always forget how cold Michigan water is as Florida water is so warm, and relatively tasteless.
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