The Year of Canning

Golden Plums Growing Wild

This year was the Year of Canning.  I remember in summers gone by, my mother canning.  It was war time and there were victory gardens and people canned foods.  We were in the country during the summer and my grandmothers cottage had a quince tree down near the boathouse.  We gathered quince and mother made jelly.  There was a grape arbor at the front of the house and so we picked grapes and made grape jelly as well. We had a folding towel rack behind the big woodstove in the kitchen and she would hang the jelly bag over a pot on the stove.  It was a fond memory and so over my lifetime I have often canned.  I remember getting a bushel of peaches at a farm in Illinois when we were in graduate school.  My hands broke out in a rash from the peach juice from peeling all the peaches but the three kinds of peach jam I made were worth it.

This year I was inspired by a plum tree.  It lives in a friend’s yard and there were more peaches than he could use.  So Dann went and picked some for us and I made jam.  When made I sent some back to the friend and his daughter.  Another friend told me of some plum trees out in the woods that were delicious.  So we went walking with baskets and collected several more quarts of plums, some golden (see above).  More plum jam. 


Golden Plum Picked

The canning then took over.  I had a hankering for bread and butter pickles and discovered that there were pick-it-yourself farms nearby.  So one Sunday, Dann and I ventured forth on a gathering adventure.  We found pickling cucumbers, sweet onions and tomatoes at a roadside stand and then went to a peach orchard where we picked several buckets of peaches.  From all this bounty I have jams, relishes, tomato sauce, chutney and bread and butter pickles.  There was also a sense of accomplishment and as I open a jar of pickles or jam a sense of satisfaction. 


Plum Jam 2011 Batch Two

Though I’ve canned before – I usually make a batch of chutney at Christmas to give as gifts – it was a new learning experience this time.  I realized the joy I taking something through a complete process.  Thinking about what I would make, picking the fruit, preparing the relish or jam, putting it in the jars in the canner, listening to the pop that tells you it’s sealed properly, storing the brightly colored jars and then enjoying the product, especially when I can share it.  I hope that my mother felt that same satisfaction when she made jams and jellies over the kerosene stove in those summers long ago.