My Life in the Little Brown House, part 20: Canned food

Beyond the laundry room, in the southeast corner of the basement was a room where various food staples such as potatoes were stored, also where my mother kept the fruits and vegetables she had canned. The Mason jars were arrayed on a number of shelves lining the walls of the room. The potatoes may have been what was grown in the garden in the west end of the lot, or I suppose may have come from Uncle Carl’s crop, although I have no recollection of this activity on his part until we moved to the farm. My mother canned a lot of fruit and vegetables to economize as far as the family food expense was concerned. Fruits included rhubarb, apples, cherries, perhaps very rarely some kind of berries. The cherries were the sour red kind and the pits were always removed before the fruit was canned, so putting up cherries was a time-consuming activity and not as many jars were “put up” as for apples and rhubarb.

I think the preferred apples for canning were what was termed “harvest” apples. These ripened, as the name implies, about the time of oat harvest which normally would by in late June and early July — threshing would be later, in the latter part of July and extending into August. Harvest apples were a soft, somewhat mealy apple, and in flavor (to me at least) when cooked resembled that of Gravensteins. The latter I knew nothing of until days in California, and indeed then only after Jean and I were married. Gravenstein applesauce was something that Jean’s mother made all during her married days — indeed while she was still relatively active she would can a dozen quarts or so and given them to us, say as a Christmas present.

The vegetables my mother canned included sweet corn, string beans, tomatoes. The sweet corn was “blanched” and then the kernels were cut off before being “cold-packed.” I think the string beans similarly were cold-pack but the tomatoes were always open kettle. Tomatoes were the most canned vegetable by her.

On further recollection, I should include peaches in the fruit my mother canned, although in this case it was fruit that was purchased. Iowa winters are too cold for peach trees to survive. We never had apricots — this also was a taste that I acquired after I moved to California (along with persimmons). There are varieties of persimmons, rather small fruit, that are native to the Midwest but we never had them.

Another fruit I neglected to include was Concord grapes. At my grandmother’s house, along the driveway on the east side of the lot was a long row of Concord grape vines, and I believe that the grapes were shared with us. The vines were quite prolific producers as I recall. I have never liked Concord grapes to eat raw, but the grape juice when used in such desserts as grape sago pudding is very much one of my favorites. When my mother made greda kaka (literally “cream pudding”) and served it topped first with thickened Concord grape juice (I suppose with cornstarch) and then with whipped cream, I had another of the desserts I treasure in memory. Jean has tried on occasion to make greda kaka but the result was not was lingers in my memory. Perhaps once difficulty is the lack of a source of unpasteurized and unhomogenized whole milk. The curdling agent, rennet, she did locate after some inquiry but I don’t think the raw milk was to be found.