Canning is something of an ancient art, used to prepare and preserve foods for long periods of time. In modern times it's best used for making jams and sauces, but many people also pickle and ferment foods using canning processes.
The major benefit to canning is that it's easy and you can do it at home yourself, and without any special equipment unless you choose to really invest in the art of canning.
You'll be shocked to learn that foods canned at home can last up to a year, which is pretty impressive. Making your own pickles or jellies at home not only keeps you stocked up on yummy favorites, but you can give them as gifts or even sell them if you've got the entrepreneurial spirit!.
SURVIVING by Canning and Curing
There is no ailment or anything alive that MASON and SALT can’t cure.
I say these things To THANK Mother And Dad who will live on forever IN OUR HEARTS and knowledge.
Necessity will make you wise beyond your years according to some (DAD)
Canning is intertwined throughout my BRIEF TRUE STORY
And to also speak on the benefits of CANNING without which OUR FAMILY would possibly have starved.Long ago.
There were Tribal Lands and Indian Reservations and a Great Nation inside another Great Nation. And most are hungry year round and cold in winter.
GWY CHEROKEE
A NATION OF GREAT WISDOM of MOTHER NATURE and how TO SURVIVE in that world. Today many people’s move between those two starkly different worlds and are intertwined in both.the full bloods had much the lessers as we were called had little. Even today my elder brother and Idisagree about the Indian way and the other world. He seems unwilling to venture into the other world. Myself I find great good in both as well as great evil. As in BIG GARDENS and luckily for me “Larger Than Life. Caucasian people that were in the day “readily available to adopt children not of thier kind and more of my own kind ready to let their children go to a good white world to be schooled in the white ways. A great man Ralph McPhetridge Said “You Teach A Man To Garden and Can “teach them to survive off the land.then if they starve they must belong in the hospital or on welfare. No need for sherkers he’d say. He and his wonderful wife LEATRICA took myself and four sisters whom they’d never seen. As CHILDREN OF THIER OWN and taught us many wonderful things. Including our indian heritage Canning and Curing were surely the ones of most important and I have used a garden most all my many years when healthy. Of course of that time in the mid 50’s everyone CANNED or knew someone that did.Store bought canned good were not readily available to my knowledge. IT WAS WHAT we did with the proceeds of the CANNING that TAUGHT us the most important and valuable lesson about LIFE. Ralph was a Carpenter,Cabinet Maker,and I was twice lucky in that my father had left years before and here was this large man that was now my daddy a word to my knowing I had no knowledge of. More knowledge than one man should possess A great man that sat tall in the saddle. A real Cowboy. I was a boy envied by most boys my age. Little did any of us know the after effects of this union. New designer clothes
(made by Mom) new thoroughbred pony, new saddle
Prominent Rancher daddy. No one had cash on hand those days I think median income was perhaps $4000 if you had 3 jobs. My wonderful Mother (RHS) was a housewife that had many skills none of which went unnoticed by towns folk. She was the best seamstress in the county prominent in town and church the talk ( or perhaps gossip ) and had 5 children to run the treadle Singer on which she made everyone in the county clothes. Yes including all of her families. also One would get tired so we’d just swap to churning butter for a while. OH didn’t I mention I milked 4 cows morning and night and twice on Sunday OH YES and in our spare time we raised a 1/2 hectare of everything you could put in garden and CANNED CURED OR PICKELED the same. There was nothing that you couldn’t CAN. CURE or Pickel outside in a 30 and 20 gal cast iron pot and a supply of wood. This we did until our hands blistered. ThAts not long on a child. These foods we used as barter along with the sewing my mom did. My dad with 3 jobs purchased the necessities for my Mother to be the Artist that in our later found out had gone to school for in NYC in the 30’s but put on hold to raise 5 little sick snotty nose lice infected Indian babies. Through hard work, necessity teaching and learning CANINING,CURING and Pickeling. Everything they taught us was to survive and barter which is what we did with the FRUITS OF OUR LABOR.
Last but:
MOST IMPORTANTLY
On Sundays while people were in church my father and I would load fresh canned goods and freshly butchered chickens or fresh pears or peaches, sometimes perhaps even a couple freshly sugar Cured Ham in the old 39 pickup and drive the county roads placing these goods on people’s porches so they to could partake in the LORDS BOUNTY on the SABBATH when they got home. You see MOM knew the most NEEDY through The hen line as dad called it.To this day none have a clue. You see wewere the poor kids whose daddy worked 3 jobs and didn’t go to church. Also it had better stay that way. He use to say God gave him a different calling. BTW
THEY WOULD HAVE NO REASON WHATSOEVER TO FIND OUT HOW TO CAN OR CURE ANYTHING.
It’s still widely practiced by anyone that has space for a few bales. I’m proud to say it’s slowly being revived. Know of any cheap jars in SW Missouri.
YOU SEE
ALL THANKS TO MOM, DAD AND
GOOD PEOPLE
don’t forget the above quote
CANNING, CURING or PICKELING
TEACHES PEOPLE TO STORE FOOD