Adventures in Canning

I am trying for the life of me to remember an Easter story but.... nothing. However, on the drive yesterday we were listening to Jian Gomeshi on Q interview Gordon Ramsey about his book A Healthy Appetite. They were talking about eating locally and in season. Well, that got me thinking about our canning and freezing adventures in Kamloops; summer weekends spent driving around the Okanagan picking up the fruit or vegetable in season and bringing it back to the house to be preserved. 30 years ago, Nancy was way ahead of her time and although it did not seem like a cool idea at the time, with the steam swirling around us in the kitchen in the middle of August, what we were doing was quite remarkable and let us eat naturally and locally throughout the year.

It would start with asparagus in May or June. I think that the asparagus came from Armstrong but I don't remember much about going to get it so I could be wrong (or I was in school). I do remember that we would get to have fresh asparagus on toast with cheese sauce for dinner that night. The asparagus was like a warm-up before a marathon.

As I write this, I am also realizing that I don't remember much about any of the vegetables. I guess that they were not as exciting as the fruit. The exception would be the zucchini. Let’s just say that Nancy’s Zucchini looked nothing like the ones you get in the grocery store. These were monster Zucchini and deserve an entry of their own one day.

After the asparagus there was a bit of a lull as we waited for the strawberries in late June or early July. Picking your own strawberries (or any other produce) is such a romantic notion; in reality it is back breaking, hot, dusty work. It only took one season for Nancy to quickly realize that pick your own plus preserve your own would result in strike action by her work force (us). On our part we were sure to complain as much as possible so it never happened again. After that we left the picking to the professionals.

As far as fruit goes, the strawberries were an easy way to start. They just needed to be washed and trimmed and frozen - some whole and some sliced. What I never understood is why the whole strawberries needed to be set out in perfect little rows on baking sheets and frozen individually before being put into bags. They all turned to mush anyway when they were thawed. I have since learned that its the recommended best practice but at the time I just thought that Nancy was doing that Head perfection thing. A bag of strawberries would be pulled out of the freezer periodically through the winter to be eaten plain or for a treat with a bit of ice cream.

July brought blueberries, cherries, raspberries. There had to be some vegetables that month but as I said, I can't remember - maybe beans? Blueberries and cherries were my favourites and still are to this day. Blueberries came from the Fraser Valley while the cherries required a trip down to Vernon or Kelowna. Janeen and I would sit in the back of our orange VW bus, strategically situated near the crates of fruit. We would gorge ourselves on the bounty the entire way home. I won’t describe the effect that this had on our digestive systems. Let’s just say that it wasn’t pretty but we didn't care and we did it every year.

The blueberries and raspberries were pretty easy - they just needed to be sorted and washed. The strange ritual of laying the fruit out on baking sheets was repeated. These frozen berries featured prominently in George’s Sunday morning pancake breakfasts.

The cherries required the additional step of pitting. This took forever and we were always in search of the ultimate cherry pitter. The cherries were both frozen and canned and they looked so beautiful packed into jars and sitting on the shelves of the cold storage room. Cherries jubilee around Christmas time became a tradition during this period.

So with the berries all packed away in the freezer and in jars we would head into August, lulled into a sense that this was not so bad and that we were half way through. How wrong we were because now the peaches, pears and tomatoes were ready and the hell began... We went through a lot of peaches, pears and tomatoes (especially tomatoes!) and they all had to be peeled and canned. Anyone who has blanched one of these suckers in order to get the skin off will quickly realize why, as a child, I thought it was hell.

It would be the height of summer and in Kamloops that meant HOT. All four of us would be elbow to elbow in the kitchen and there would be pots on every element on the stove plus a kettle or two filled with boiling water. It was an assembly line. Someone would be blanching the peaches and peeling the skins off, another would be cutting, pitting and slicing them to various thicknesses, someone would then be packing them into jars, filling them with juice or syrup and putting the lids and rings on that had been sitting in boiling water and finally, someone would be manning the canning pot, putting the precious jars into the bath, taking them out at the designated time and setting them on towels to cool.

Each of these positions had its drawbacks. Blanching and peeling the fruit required a high tolerance for scalding your hands; cutting and pitting the skinned fruit was messy and sticky; the jars needed to be packed just right – not too full and not too empty or you would not get a good seal; manning the bath was the most pressure as a messed up batch was an expensive and time consuming mistake. Doing some would not be so bad but we did a lot. Between the peaches and the tomatoes, it seemed like it would never end. However, it did end and after a few months, we would forget the worst of it, especially when the peach crisp came out of the oven in January.

Sometime in late September or early October we would have our ritual weekend with the apple press. For a couple of weeks building up to the big day, Nancy would be out collecting as many windfall apples as she could from local apple farmers. The apple shredder and press would arrive early one Saturday morning and we would begin. George would move the van out of the driveway to make room for the press and the shredder. This was not a small implement nor a small endeavour. Janeen and I would be tasked with throwing the apples into the shredder which was basically a wood chipper for fruit. The shredded fruit would be collected and placed into the press. Once the press was full we would put the lid on and then crank it down by circling the press and pushing on a wooden handle. Out would come a stream of the most amazing fresh apple juice. We would take it up to the kitchen where Nancy was pasteurizing the juice and sealing it in big jugs for the store room. It was hazardous work what with the wood chipper and the swarm of wasps that were attracted by the sweet smell of the apples. It was worth it though as that apple juice kept us going through the winter.

Apples marked the end of the season and I am sure we were all relieved when it was over. It was such a part of our lives at the time that I never realized how unusual it was to have a 28cu.ft. freezer filled to the brim and a cold store room with jar upon jar of fruit and vegetables that sustained us through the winter. As a result, I am sure that I was not as appreciative of my parents efforts then as I am now. Looking back with the perspective of adulthood, it was a great opportunity to bond as a family and a wonderful learning experience. I hope that someday (soon) I will have the chance do some of what we did, albeit on a (much) smaller scale.