Way back in the way back, I'd be in the kitchen

G

GeorgiaXplant

Well-known Member
Location
Georgia
busily canning everything I could get out of the garden, wild apples from out in the country, Bell peppers/pears/peaches from the supermarket or farmers market and making jelly and preserves.

Nobody in this household would dream of eating anything canned at home! Actually, everybody in this household, except for me, would far prefer that all food come from a restaurant, deli or drive-thru.

It makes me feel kind of unnecessary or something. Is canning really so passé that it's just not done anymore?

When I mentioned to DD that I'd like to start a small garden in the spring, she said "That's what grocery stores are for."
 

Georgia, Tell her it's a hobby to fill your time, and for exercise. She might jump at it then. If you grow more than you can use, give it to your local food bank for the homeless. For that matter, the food bank might turn the earth for you. :wave:
 
I never thought of giving it to a food bank. I wonder if they'd take it? I want to put in carrots, peppers, cukes, leaf lettuce...and whatever else strikes me when I'm in planting mode in the spring. If I can make space, I think I'll try cantaloupes, too. The yard is big, but DD prefers flowers, and the more the better. Can't eat most flowers, though.

It has occurred to me that what I miss is the "fall" feeling of being productive. DH really liked having home-canned fruits and veggies in the dead of winter. "Dead" of winter is what it was Up North, too!
 

GeorgiaXplant ..your comments struck a chord with me. I have never had an urge to can or bottle any produce or even spend much time in the kitchen at all but I do love growing vegetables and fruits. Last year I blissed out by growing an exquisite set of pumpkins and they must be the most photographed and sketched vegetables in history.I grow strawberries for the family of quail that share the garden with me and the old aspagagus bed has plants nearly 7 feet high. The cherry trees feed lots of birds and the bald eagle who sits on the tall fir tree at the bottom of the garden keeps cats away .
 
It's great that you are bottling, it was a lot of satisfaction to see the bottles lined up full of fruit/veg. A friend of mine really enjoys it, still makes her own jam.
 
Fern, I'd still be making jam, too, if anybody here would eat it. Like I said earlier, they prefer edibles from a store, restaurant, drive-thru...

And there was a great sense of satisfaction to see those jars all lined up and sparkling on the kitchen table. The sun used to come in the window just behind them in the afternoon, and I'd look at the day's efforts and feel just downright smug! They looked pretty darned good in November, too, when we'd start opening them up for Thanksgiving Dinner, again in December for Christmas, in January and February when we were tired of sNOw and more sNOw...and they looked pretty darned good in between all those times!
 
We had a small vegetable garden this summer and it was good to go out and get beets, cucumbers,
tomatoes and zucchini with no pesticides on them.
We also have rhubarb and asparagus in spring and I froze several containers of rhubarb.
I made four lots of mustard pickles and one batch of green tomato chow. They taste much better than
what's available in stores but it is a lot of work.
 
My SIL still can's, in Mason jars, vegies, etc. that she buys at a local vegetable stand. I was sort of shocked to hear that. I can see folks on farms, ranches, city suburbs having gardens, but not "canning" anymore. It's very interesting to go into a Cracker Barrel Restaurant merchandise store and see all the old stuff they have for sale. If I remember right, they serve their iced tea and soda in Mason jars.
"Canning" reminds me of another thing my step-dad use to do in the winter time on our farm........make/pull soft and hard taffy in different colors. He would "pull" it on our enclosed back porch that wasn't heated.
 
I made pulled taffy for about 30 people for Christmas about ten years ago. Everyone loved it, but it sure was a lot of work. I saved quite a bit of money that year, but I received any little burns too. :tapfoot:
 
Georgia, I don't can but I do put peaches and black berries in the freezer, they make wonderful cobblers in the winter, also freeze bell peppers for cooking through out the year.
 
Classic and Ina, taffy pulls! I remember taffy pulls. It was one of the high points of our Girl Scout troop when I was a kid and always done in the winter. It was a lot of work, but oh, my, it sure did taste good!

Jackie, I've tried to talk DD into getting a freezer but it falls on deaf ears. For one thing, it would save all those extra trips to the supermarket. Heck, when Whatsisname, The Father of My Children, was still in college, we used to buy a couple of weeks' worth of bread and six gallons of milk at a time and freeze it. She just can't seem to grasp the practicality of having a freezer:confused:
 
Yes, on the freezer....when you live in the country, you don't hop in the car every other day and run up to the neighborhood convenience store..lol...I freeze flour, powdered and brown sugar, I buy extra meat, pizzas...all kinds of veggies.
 
Heck, we'd go to Sam's Club about four times a year, and I'd buy our breakfast cereal in bulk and freeze that, too. Also froze cake mixes and flour. DD just doesn't get it. Where did I go wrong;)
 
Jackie, I have to agree with you. Too good for too long. Sure hope nothing ever drives her to having to actually be frugal!

And Ina, it's lucky for me that DD already likes me;)
 
This year so far we have canned asparagus, beets, carrots, vegetable soup, peaches, blackberries, peas, and peppers. Still have Tabasco peppers and sweet potatoes to can later.

We have also frozen strawberries, blackberries, corn and okra.

Gardening and canning isn't done much by young folks these days but us old folks still do it. Nothing you can buy at the store is as good as home canned. Oh, yeah, we also made a crock of kraut.
 
rkunsaw, my grandfather, a Canuck through and through, made kraut in a big crock. A really big crock. I have no idea how or where he learned it, but it was good and we all looked forward to it.

And you're right, nothing from the store is as good as home canned:)
 
I have a wee garden but sure do get a lot of good eating out of it by double planting. In a few days a second batch of yellow and green beans and if I'm lucky with no frost the tomatoes are still producing.

It's just a good feeling to grow even a little yourself, when thinning out baby carrots are a treat.

Do you think I should hint about a freezer as an early Christmas gift.

Georgia, you mentioned the food bank....they will appreciate any type of gift, especially fresh veggies.
 
Does it help to know, I'm getting ready to turn a bunch of tomatoes that all ripened at the same time (and there are only two of us) into tomato juice and red gravy? I'd like the extras to go into the freezer for the middle of winter, but sadly, the canning gene didn't pass down from Mom to me, until way after Mom died. I'd like to. I don't know how to.

Mom made clothes on a sewing machine, tried to garden (she was terrible at it, but she kept trying), made enough jellies and jams that I never had store bought, until I went to college, made all desserts from scratch (she could never get the bottom crust of the pies to bake), canned jars of whole tomatoes (by the quart size and covered two shelves), and then made the sauce for Dad's 144 meatballs to be frozen (somewhat less numbers, if the beagle got to the meatballs when Dad wasn't looking.) She also needlepointed so well, the Bishop of Joliet asked her to make a design for his chair (and her mother did the chair of someone high up in the Episcopal church.) I thought she was nuts. Why do all that, when you can easily go to the store and buy it?

Now I'm older than Mom ever became (she died when she was 44.) I got my gardening gene from Gram -- Mom's mom. (Gram was a horticulturalist. I'm not that good, but most of my plants grow and survive me now.) I learned the secret to getting the bottom crust of a pie at least beginning to look like it was baked. Sewing machines scare me, like computers used to. But, I've hand sewn clothes for all my stuffed animals (yes, I'm in my late 50s, why do you ask? If I'm cold in the winter, they must be cold. :eek:), I found fine needlework impossible after I hit bifocal stage, (so I crotchet instead), but I've also learned the value of homemade food -- less salt and sugar. I blame all of it on a dormant gene. I got all this from Mom and Gram. It just hit later in life.

You may never see your family appreciating the effort, but do it for you, and understand, somewhere down the road they'll remember and want to do the same thing. It's inherited.
 

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