Canning is more than being fired

I find it serendipitous that the very same week I go to my cousin Fern's house to learn the fine art of pickling my favorite blog on the net features a story about canning strawberry jam (www.thepioneerwoman.com ) with complete descriptions and beautiful photography. She even referenced the same Ball book of canning that I had used only days ago.

This Ball book must be a jillion years old, more or less. Who knows how many  printings this manuscript has undergone? It seems to be in every farm kitchen on the planet, replete with its own photos of the Olden Tymes. (My mother will reel when she sees that reference!!) I would have sworn I saw a few cows moseying into a few frames of film, a delightful backdrop to the steaming jars and studious, gingham-kerchiefed farm woman faces. Cows "moseyed" back then, you know, because they could go where they wanted without cars hitting them. It was a covered wagon fiesta! (Again, just kidding, Mom!)

The copy Fern uses is worn, tattered, splattered, and different shades of weathered oatmeal, handed down from her aunt. Actually Fern isn't sure that the book was a gift, or was it a loan, but she has assumed custody until something is said... And this crazy old book is still relevant! It is its own Bible of information about how to get started with preserving food, which foods may be put into jars and steamed or pressurized into the long wait for consumption, the concepts behind the procedures, why it's so important for every element of the process to be sterile and dust-free, and even how many years food can stay safely tucked into its own Mason jar. My mother-in-law seemed to think the shelf life was more than 25 years for some jars of peaches she had "preserved" in high school. She had to actually tell me that those nasty gelatinous blobs were peaches. Eew.

I'm sure one of my grandparents somewhere has their own copy. I should ask. I want to see just how "loved" -- I use that term facetiously, because of course canning wasn't about fun and trend, it was the way of life -- and worn their copy is. That would tell me volumes about how they lived their nutritional lives, and it would tell me a bit about their childhoods. I'm sure that the storing of food was not done solely by the matriarch of the family. That's what kids are for! Free labor. I'm sure some Saturday morning the children were lazily, stubbornly dragging their unwilling butts into the kitchen, dreading the day of hot steamy kitchen air rather than the numerous other glorious wide-open places kids would rather be. And if my grandparent tells it right, they'll give me lots of descriptors to really make me feel that heat and steam and anger and despair that lingered around the kids' heads...it'll be a great story.