Village Squire, 1978-01, Page 14Father and
the preserving kettle
BY G.P.
Some years back my mother-in-law became quite ill just as the
canning season was about to start. My wife had to pack up at
once and rush off, but before she left She put a sheaf of favourite
family recipes into my hand and announced sweetly, "It's up to
you, dear. Everything in the garden is reaching maturity. If you
don't take over all will be wasted and you will have to eat
store-bought pickles and jam." Trust a wife to know the clincher.
I have just one stomach and decline to insult it by offerings of
God alone knows what carcegenious addatives with names up to
seven syllables long.
Up to that summer, canning had been one of those remote
operations like Santa Claus toyshop way up in Baffinland or is it
Ellesmere. One fully appreciated what came out of both; the
kitchen arid toyfactory but all the methods of production were
cloaked in mystery.
In self defense one faces what one must and at least I could
read. The question was whether I could successfully follow
directions in such an exotic field as the preparation of black
currant jam, raspberry vinegar and great grandmother's
incomparable chili sauce. Nor could I count on any help from my
own girls who were on the young side to be of any real assistance
short of drying dishes and doing some of the picking in the
garden.
Well, I surely learned a lot that season. Watched teakettles
may never boil, but unwatched preserving kettles not only boil,
they boil over. Picking things like gooseberries and currants was
only half the job for the culling and stemming and washing had
to follow. Allspice, I discovered was not a short form for all the
kinds of spice in the cupboard. In a pickle recipe the difference
between two cups of vinegar to one of water as opposed to two
cups of water to one of vinegar leads to something fit only for the
compost heap. It took a while to figure that in a recipe book tsp.
was for teaspoon. There was a best time to put the wax on jam
jars, just not any old time. Old chili powder I found loses its bite.
There were many other things including the fact that our
hardworking wives put a lot of long and often messy hours in
in canning season.
Maybe you all feel that that was to be my first and last season
with my nose over a preserving kettle sniffing the mellow steam.
It wasn't for I got such a kick out of the things that turned out
well that in the years that followed filling the fruit celler shelves
and the freezer has become a team affair. For a bloke who at one
time had to battle to get a soft boiled egg just right, I've turned
into a gent who can knock off a really tasty dill pickle. No
requests for recipes, please. They all come under the heading of
either classified or top secret.
12, VILLAGE SQUIRE/JANUARY 1978.
A
1,D4
To you, whose
faith and
goodwill
we treasure,
rdie we wish a happy
1,1111 and prosperous
New Year.
FINE FURNITURE • PAINTS
CARPETS • WALLCOVERINGS
Robert L. Plumsteel
Interiors
DECORATING
PHONE 527-0902
SEAFORTH