Sunday, October 01, 2006

Today I canned salsa

Early September, 2006

Culture runs deep. I came from pioneers who didn’t always know where their next meal was coming from. Any extra garden produce was canned or dried, “put up” for the winter. Both sets of grandparents were poor by today’s standards. Their homes were small, two bedrooms, a living room, a kitchen, a bathroom. My maternal grandparents in my earliest memories slept in an alcove off the kitchen; privacy consisted of a curtain that ran along the side of the bed.

My grandparents did not receive welfare. They did what they could and if the money ran out, they ate what they had in the house. Granddad H loved Zoom cereal and ate his fried eggs so black with pepper it was hard to tell the whites from yolk. I remember being surprised after Grandma died at how empty his cupboards were. His cupboard contained a few dishes and glasses, a salt and pepper shaker, the ever present box of Zoom and, on the top shelf, a bottle of whiskey. Sometimes there were a few cans of peaches or beans.

I don’t remember him being sad or worried about this state of affairs. He always reached in his pocket first thing when we arrived and dug out his little leather coin purse. He rummaged around in it until he found a nickel apiece for us and dropped those worn nickels in our outstretched hands with stiff shaky fingers. “Go get a milk nickel,” he would say with a smile. (A milk nickel was a chocolate covered ice cream bar and cost $0.05.) I remember one time Dad asked him how much money he had left. He admitted to giving us much of what he had, he was down to two bits. (for the younger generations...$0.25) Dad chastised him for giving away his last dime, but Granddad just smiled. He was generous to fault and loved to make children happy. Daddy was very careful with his money and I could see that he had some resentment toward his father as he handed him a twenty dollar bill. (That went pretty far in the mid fifties.)

Funny how traits are remembered for good or ill and those memories are passed down through the family. Grandma H was careful and planned ahead. She canned everything she could in the summer to keep her family during the winter. Granddad didn’t plan ahead quite so well. One time when he had been drinking, he invited some of his buddies home and gave them jars of Grandma’s home canned produce. I understand she was not very happy about that. There must have been quite a commotion for the memory of it to have been passed down all these years.

I don’t remember my mother’s mother canning. She came from Holland and her ways in the kitchen were not the same as my mother’s. Mom remembers a time during the depression that her father picked wild apples along the Oregon roadside on his way to work so he "would have something in his stomach". My mother learned most of her cooking from Mrs. Anderson on the ranch she and dad worked on for a bit. Dad cowboyed and Mom helped in the kitchen. Mom wanted to be American and nothing old world stuck.

Mom and Dad were both young during the Depression and took food and food wasting seriously. Though they never said so, I believe they had both gone to bed hungry when times were bad. We were simply not allowed to leave the table until we had eaten everything on our plates. Dad often lectured us on being grateful for what we had. I spent hours at the table one Thanksgiving because the canned asparagras they bought for a treat made me gag.

Mom canned peaches and pears and green tomato relish. She made bright green sweet pickles that were saved for Thanksgiving and Christmas. And green tomato mincemeat. Nothing was wasted. Tomatoes and peaches, pears and apples were purchased by the bushel. We were very rarely allowed to eat the peaches and pears fresh, they were to be canned. If we had plenty, Mom would slice and sugar them for dessert. Dad would pour cream or milk if we didn’t have cream on peaches, a habit I have never tried. Apples were kept in wooden bushel baskets in the garage on the wall next to the house. Dad covered them with an old rug to keep them from freezing. The apples were for pies, but we could eat them if we asked first.

So I find myself canning each autumn, a sort of learned reflex, born of having parents, grandparents, and great grandparents who knew times of deep hunger. I know people who love to preserve fresh garden produce, taking great delight in the whole process. I do not love to can. I find myself doing it grumpily, sometimes resentfully, yet I am the one who plants all those tomato plants and all those pepper plants and now tomatillos, too. I go to the orchard and glean peaches and apples after the pickers have finished. Nobody forces me to. It is entirely my own choice. It’s messy and time consuming and tiring, but I cannot imagine not doing it. I must admit that commercially canned peaches have next to nothing in common with home canned peaches. So, for as long as I am able, I will continue this hated yet compelling habit of canning. Today I canned salsa and tomorrow there will be more tomatoes and peppers to pick.

Rinda Fullmer
Copyright 2006

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I was overjoyed to read that you are following traditons and have such a wealth of them to remember. I also remember my grandmother canning at the farmhouse here in Connecticut. Although my mother didn't can, my dad made sauerkraut, pickles and any other assortment of things to "put away" for the winter. I am now in my late 50's and every fall I trudge into the woods to the secret nut trees and grapevines, and spend time picking up our pears and apples for canning. Same as you, I believe it is time consuming and would rather be doing something else. But...there is nothing like sharing the fruits of my labor, all the while hoping that someone will continue on after I am gone. Salsa, sounds great! I am getting ready to do up some cranberry relish to "put away" for the winter. I enjoyed reading your story..Donna

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