Canning Anyone?

To the left are the nasty dark old brown peaches I had to throw out.















































Canning

Now here’s a good story for you. Twas the year two thousand and two, and my daughters and I decided to put up peaches. I want to say right up front; I’ve never been a great fan of canning. It’s a love, slash, hate relationship, I love the finished product ---hate the work. That year we did 70 quarts, an impressive amount doncha' think? After the entire project was finished, they looked so nice sitting on the shelf in my pantry.

Lets discuss canning for a moment. Canning could be compared to a religion; maybe a cult, or possibly maybe even akin to joining a political party. I know I'm a cynical person, but have you ever stood with a group of women in their seventies and listened to them talk about canning. It sounds like a fierce electoral debate two weeks before a national election.

Take for instance just the type of jar one chooses to can with. Should you pick Kerr or Ball? I listened to my mother in the beginning and started buying Kerr jars. Then my friend who cans everything from fruit to meat said I was making an enormous mistake and Ball jars were far superior to Kerr.

My friend's suggestions sent me to the store to have a look. I decided to buy some. Not because I thought they were any better, but because they had the prettiest fruit pattern on the outside. It was beveled right into the glass. Wow, if I’m going to have to can, then I would at least like my jars to look decorative sitting there on a shelf in my cold, uninviting, dark, cob-webby fruit room. LOL!

My mother found out I was buying Ball jars and had a catastrophic fit. It was as if I had crossed party lines. I didn’t think she was going to ever speak to me again. To this day I still have to sit out a few Kerr lids on my kitchen counter when I’m canning, just in case she drops by.

My friend, the canning queen, she might buy Ball jars but she uses Kerr lids. What is that all about? After detecting this, I decided to ask her how come she had abandoned her alliance to Ball. She said, “Oh, I just hate to confess this, but Kerr lids seal better. The look on her face was as if the Republican in her had discovered something good about a Democrat----- it was the most depressed look I had ever seen.

In the canning world, I have decided to align myself with the non-partisan group; at this point I really don’t care about the debate between Kerr and Ball anymore. I just want to get the fruit in the bottle and on the shelf so I can get the h@** out of the kitchen!

This was my frame of mind when I decided to can 70 quarts of peaches with my daughters back in 2002, “Let’s just hurry up and be done with it!” I kept saying to my girls.

Just before we began the whole canning ordeal that day, I distinctly remember calling my mother for my usual run down on how to accomplish the mundane feet. The phone rang and rang but no one answered. I nearly died. She wasn’t home. Now what was I to do? It was a deeply embedded religious cardinal rule not to begin canning without first consulting the Pope (my mother). I was stricken with panic! Sheesh, I've never canned anything before first speaking with my mother about it. I've been canning for years and still I have to call my mother for instructions!

Well, I figured out the sugar amount, two thirds cup. I at least remembered that much. Now, I just needed to know how long to process them. Here is where I made my fatal mistake ---- I called the extension service, thirty minutes they told me. Wow, I thought that sounded like a really long time to process peaches. Who am I however to argue with the Utah State Extension Service?

After all 70 jars of peaches were done cooking and all lined up on my counter top, my mother decided to drop in ( oh sure now she shows up.) She started in with the regular compliments of how nice the peaches looked and then she began her party interrogation. Thankfully I was able to answer each question correctly until she popped out with the last one. I knew I was in for it when I saw her furrowed brow take shape along with her piercing gaze.

Suddenly sweat formed in the palm of my hands and I knew the last question was going to be brutal. Then she hit me with it. Quietly she spoke, “How long did you process them?”

When she ask me this question I carefully thought about what the extension service had told me. Surely it was a safe answer, so I replied, “thirty minutes.” I was feeling pretty smug on having gotten such viable information from what I considered to be a top-notch professional source without even consulting my mother. Wow, wasn’t’ she going to be impressed –--wouldn't I look smart!

“Thirty minutes” she gasped, I thought she was going to pass out. I should have seen it coming. After all, she is my mother. It didn't take her two seconds to vehemently launch into her platform speech about what in the world was I thinking, and how no one who knows anything about canning cooks peaches that long.

 “Well they look nice don’t you think?” I ask this question hoping she would see how annoying it was to get a lecture after all the work I had gone to. It was no use, she just went on and on about how my peaches were going to taste like mush and turn brown in a week.

Today is September 24, 2008. Today I emptied 64 quarts of peaches down the disposal. Today I cried! I hate it when I have to tell my mother she is right. What is it about admitting to my mother she has any knowledge superior to my own? Part of me would rather cut off my left leg and feed it to a shark than to have to tell my mother she was right, but she was right. Half of them turned brown and the other half that still looked somewhat decent were so mushy I couldn’t stand to eat them.

The only thing worse than canning peaches is dumping all of your hard work down the drain. Besides I didn’t have the heart to tell her the peaches weren’t “Early Alberta’s”. That would have meant another lecture and me admitting they didn’t taste that good to begin with.

My mother was born and bred in North Ogden, Utah. When it comes to peaches, any woman born around the 1920’s in North Ogden Utah was taught to bottle “Early Alberta’s” and they were also taught to process them absolutely no longer than 20 minutes. And if you didn’t use two thirds cup of sugar you were a buffoon! This has been the political canning agenda of these women for years. I was at least glad I got the sugar amount right. Did I tell you my mother comes from a family of ten? She is related to half of North Ogden. So if you check this information out and find it incorrect then you are talking to the wrong half!

I learned my lesson absolutely the hardest way possible and tomorrow I’m going to the fruit stand to see if there is even a remote possibility that “Early Alberta’s” are still in existence. Before I begin the whole process I’ll phone my mother for bits and pieces of her ancient wisdom. When I get in the kitchen and begin the methods of making beautiful fruit, I’m going to take my sweet time. I am going to put on my plaid apron and look domestic. I think I’ll even play a little “Connie Francis” music, maybe listen to the song “Where The Boys Are.” And I’ll roll my hair gently around my face, I want look the part, I want to look like I just stepped out of the fifty’s. I want to look just like my mother did when she was young and oh so domestic.

It’s funny but I remember as a little girl sitting on a stool in my mother’s kitchen watching her fill jar after jar with brightly colored golden peaches. Every once in a while she’d slip a sliver into my mouth. To this day there is not a jar of peaches opened that could possibly taste better than my mother’s.

I learned today canning is an art and my mother was a master of it. Come December I’m going to reap the rewards of my labor. In December I’ll pull a bottle of those yummy peaches off the shelf and make myself a mid-winter pie. It’s my mother’s recipe – it’s to die for. Come December I’ll share it with you. Maybe canning is not so bad. Maybe it's like anything else in life - it's your attitude when you're doing it. I say cheers to canning! For some good tips click here.