Most days I am overwhelmed by the swirl of critique and pressure to be part of the solution (or at least not part of the problem) to food production and consumption that are both environmentally damaging and unhealthy to individuals like me. There are ideal scenarios for opting out of the problem, but most of them have seemed out of reach for people with no time or money to spare. Lately, though the balance among those things-—time, money, health, environment—-has started to shift. Perhaps it’s my age, or the diminishing strength and vitality that has come with the lifestyle of these too-busy student days, or the increasingly dire environmental conditions that we face. No doubt it’s also involvement in a class on creation care. Whatever is pushing this shift, I welcome it, because I’ve always understood that I have not been living up to the ideals, and so I am part of the problem, both for myself and for the earth.
Now that it’s spring, and flowers and fresh produce are beginning to appear in grocery stores and farm markets, I’ve been having vivid flashbacks of memory to the foodways of my childhood. I come from farm folk, who had extensive gardens next to their cornfields. Meals at the farm were fresh-picked (or freshly slaughtered) or freshly baked, and we all knew exactly where the food came from.
My people remained farm folk even when they moved to the city. We no longer raise our own meat, but we had an extensive garden in the back yard of our 40-foot lot. Tomatoes, cucumbers, radishes, cucumbers, potatoes,
peas and green beans, beets, sweet peppers, zucchini, cabbage, onions, pumpkins and squash, and more. What we couldn’t grow, we sought out at local farms, and what we didn’t eat, we canned. We went to pick-your-own berry farms and brought home strawberries, and bought bushels of corn from local truck stands. My mother watched especially for cling peaches and bing cherries in the markets—-her favorites. Surely there was even more, that I no longer remember. What I remember vividly, though, is the process of canning.
We set aside a whole day, or two, for this production. First, the supplies—we had one set of jars that was
re-used year after year. So, we had only to find new lids and rings at the store. In those days, these were easy to find; every grocery store carried them. Then, the process: sterile jars; for low-acid foods we needed the pressure cooker, in good working order, and the big pot for the water bath, for high-acid foods. Blue, with speckles, as I recall. This had to be a careful, precise operation, even though generations of experience made it look easy. No mistakes were acceptable on sterilizing and sealing the jars, or bringing them to a high enough temperature, lest bacteria grow in the food.
Finally, details: the funnel to fill the jars; the rubber-lined tongs to lift the jars safely from the water or the pressure cooker; towels to set them on to dry, and a big production line to clean and prepare the food.
I remember the kitchen being hot and steamy, the water pot boiling, the pressure cooker whistling, and the sharp smell of pickling brine filling the kitchen. Sterile jars lined upon the table, with new lids and rings ready, raised the level of
anticipation, like new pencils and notebooks on the first day of school. One by one, the jars were filled with the fresh food, the proper mix of liquid was poured over it, rings and lids placed, and sealed safely in the pressure cooker. It was like magic.
The food in the jars was like an art exhibit: beautiful, unchanging, and untouchable. The jars were placed on shelves in the basement, under the stairway, a place dedicated to their safe display.
As autumn arrived and the air grew brisk, the garden gave up the last of its harvest—-squash and pumpkins—-and turned to brown stubble. The farm markets closed, and the produce in the stores no longer was local. But in our house, every night as supper was being prepared, my brother would be dispatched to the basement to bring up a jar of the particular condiment or side dish that would complete the meal. The jar would be opened, and miraculously the very food I had washed and peeled and cut months before would emerge, just as if we had picked it that very day.
The loss of that food practice was accepted as I grew up and moved out of the house. I did not fully stock the kitchen of my college years and, after that, life outside of home got busier and life at home got short shrift. There was no time, even if the impulse had been present, to indulge even in finding the fresh food to can, much less to embark on that whole process, find the room to store the food, nor money for the capital investment required. Even the supplies were harder to find. Canning jars had become a novelty, appearing on store shelves at Christmas, to be filled with hot cocoa mix or designer coffees.
More recently, though, the practice of canning has re-emerged in the city, alongside the local foods movement. Stores once again stock canning supplies; those who have lost the art can find how-to books or Internet advice; and pressure cookers are a featured item at Williams-Sonoma. And so, my memories have returned. For a few years now I have yearned for a decent pressure cooker, and I linger too long in the canning-jar aisle at the store. Only this year, though, have I decided to actually take the plunge. I will make the investment, and I will can.
This decision will shift my diet. Typically, I eat fresh produce only when it’s available from local growers in grocery stores and farmers markets, in season. Then, I stop buying it fresh, because imported produce is expensive and not appealing. This leads me to frozen food, which almost always has additives, not to mention a biography of processing, packaging, and travel to my market that makes it costly to the environment.
This year, I will stock up on fresh local foods while they are in season, refresh my canning skills, and go to work. Next winter, I will go down to the basement, to the shelves under the stairway, and gently carry a glass jar of the summer’s bounty to my table. As I savor the taste of summer that it carries, along with it I will savor the way it enhances my health, connects me to my past, and moves me just a little closer to the earth.
