The season of canning has begun.
Putting food up.
I came home yesterday with 2 big boxes of gorgeous peaches to can.
Tom asks me..."Is it worth it?"
I say to him more than once during these times....
"Just wait until a cold, drizzly day in February...I will go downstairs and come up with a jar.
As the jar pops open, you will smell summer...
You'll taste August."
Of course it's worth it!!
Jars ready...
I think of my great grandmother and what it would have been like in her time...
Cooking on a big old wood stove like this one...
Some women were lucky enough to have a 'summer kitchen'.
I imagine that produce was abundant with the amount of farmers in the area.
People grew much more of their own food in their backyards.
Canned food was not something you bought in the store. It was what you did in late summer.
Aside from all the other chores.
Without modern conveniences.
And so the tradition continues.
For me its not so much a necessity, although I prefer to know exactly what's in my jar of peaches, it's the satisfaction of seeing all those lovely jars, full, sealed and ready for storage in the basement.
So when it looks like this...
You know what's waiting for you...
Summer in a jar!
3 comments:
Yum! Jams and preserves always remind me of my grandma. I wish I'd had her teach me!
Yes... it's SO worth it! There's nothing better than going down to the basement and just gazing at the jewel-like jars on the shelves either. It gives my heart a lift, every time!
i grew up in a house with a basement filled with canned goods. flathead cherries, dill pickles, peaches, beet jelly (the best!), pickled beets, canned fish (fussy face). when the ladies gathered round the kitchen table, jars were exchanged. "try my bread and butters", "you should try mabel's saurerkraut".
my son wants to learn to can (he's the cook in my family). he wants to start with raising his own peppers and tomatoes to make his own salsa. whenever my mom hears this, she beams.
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