The last couple of years, I have been canning in a bigger way than much of my adult life. A lot of this is due to me not having a full time job. When I was working, this would be a very busy time for me, as I took in all the historical costumes that had been issued out for the year. I would be basting kilts, mending dresses, more laundry than I could shake a stick at.
I'd come home in the evenings exhausted.
When I was working full time, we ate a lot of quickly cooked meals, usually while snarfing a loaf of bread due to our 'very busy lives' and not eating well during the day. I've noticed that since I've been home, more or less full time, between classes and such, we've begun to eat far more healthily. And I've begun to can my own preserves.
This was something my mum taught me how to do when I was a kid. It was always cheaper to buy things in bulk and make our own, and we grew up poor. Our freezer and can cupboard got a work out. Spaghetti sauce, chili, this thing with ground beef, tomatoes, spices and rice, and canned goods were mostly of the fruit and vegetable kind. As I got older, and we were able to visit the farmer's market, I just made more and more. Moving here, with the market less than a kilometre's walk, I can a lot.
I understand how privileged I am to live in a place where the hundred mile diet is a reality, and it's actually far cheaper to can my own stuff than to buy from the grocery store. There's no such thing as a food desert in the Montreal region.
Today, as I processed 15lbs of beets for the winter, I was thinking about how privileged I am to be able to can goods in this century as opposed to the eighteenth century. Things that I take for granted today are many. So I thought I'd write about my morning, and compare it to the daily chores of my eighteenth-century counterpart.
I started the laundry, in a machine, where I could control the heat of the water, and whether is was given an extra wash cycle or not. I could also just pour in the detergent, not having to make my own. I buy that in bulk too, and thanks to very modern ideas on skin sensitivities, that detergent is dye, scent, and many 'p' words free. I sorted the darks first, because Pierre is getting short on undershorts. These happily went on their washing way while I went back upstairs. My work on that task done for the moment.
I then set my beets on to boil. There was no drawing of water from the well, I simply poured water in from the tap to cover. I'm also on 'city water' so there's no worry about my well running dry at the moment. There was also no lighting a fire under the pot either, I simply turned a knob to the desired temperature. While the beets boiled, and the laundry churned, I drank coffee and knit, and listened to a podcast of a lecture from Yale university.
Think about that for a moment...
My coffee came from a machine that automatically turns itself on in the morning, and makes the exact same pot of coffee every morning. In the Montreal region, I was able to listen to a lecture on the American Revolution from Yale University, several hundred kilometres away. I was able to sit and knit while all of this was going on around me. Chores that each would have taken days to do by hand.
Then as I was processing my beets, I realized that a simple thing like the jars and snap lids I use are different from those used in the eighteenth century. Snap Lids! That one invention alone has made home canning so much safer than even 150 years ago! Probably even just 75 years ago. My grandmother still would fill the top half inch of her jars with wax before sealing with the lid, and there was no boiling the product after it was canned to further seal it in the pressure canner. It was more like do the best you can, and then hope for the best. In the eighteenth century, things were processed differently, and a pickle, like my beets would have been stored in a crock with a wax seal. But more to the point, most of my processing work is peeling the little beets. I don't have to make the sugar, I don't even have to scrape it from a cone. I pour it from a bag into the saucepan. I pour my vinegar from a big jug I also bought at the store. No making my own vinegar or verjuice either.
In between, I wipe down the kitchen periodically with clean, white paper towel to keep the dust and condensation down. I change the laundry over to the dryer, start a new load. And I continue to listen to the next lecture from Yale in the que on my iPad.
All in all, I've had a busy day. But my morning's work would have taken a week to do in the eighteenth century. I also can because we like the taste and texture of my beets over those bought in the grocery. It's cheaper, tastier, and gives me a sense of accomplishment. I'm not canning to preserve the harvest, worrying about whether we will have enough to eat in March and April...though it is a running joke in our house whether we will run out before next fall and have to resort to eating store bought.
And I can look in the cupboard and think that if we are posted and move before the end of the winter, I can take everything with me. Unlike many Loyalist women, I don't have to leave my hard work to someone else to find.
Yale lectures on the American Revolution: 'Who were the Loyalists
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