Preserving past traditions

The following letters are in response to a TV Guide editorial asking readers to share their stories about bottling and preserving fruit. We had such a big response, we’ll be sharing more of your memories next week.

I love preserving. When Dad died I was six and our grandmother came to live with us. She had lived through two wars so knew the importance of preserving but mostly just made jams, bread and home-cooked meals where everything was made from scratch. I went one step further. After learning how to bottle peaches at home economics, I was totally hooked. I did not just do our preserves but those for a couple of neighbours as well – much to their delight. I still preserve but don’t have the time or energy to do so for the neighbours now. Each year I make plum sauce, apricot sauce, tamarillo sauce, if I can get the fruit, plus 30 to 40 jars of tomato soup (my nephew’s favourite), peaches, plums, fruit salad, pears, jams, lemon honey, cucumber pickle, pickled onions, and bottled beetroot. We also make home-made grape juice as we grow loads of grapes. I also dehydrate some foods and have just done a heap of our plums. I also bulk cook vegetarian meals for the freezer as my younger sister has not eaten meat for more than 40 years and it’s hard to buy nice vegetarian food in supermarkets. I hope to teach my niece and nephew so they will also have cupboards full of preserves. If disaster struck, we would not go hungry in our house.

Sandra Young (Motueka)

I read your editor’s letter and smiled. I was one of those people who used to bottle all sorts of fruit and beetroot

and asparagus. I also made many sauces and pickles; my big walk-in pantry was full. Now my family have left home, I only do beetroot and relishes. I have two funny stories about those days. I asked my husband to pick up 20 pounds of beetroot, forgetting about the change to kilos. He came home with 20 kilos hence I was bottling beetroot for some time. Another time my niece was staying over at Christmas time. She stood at the pantry door and asked what were all those things in the jars. Her mother replied with a grin, ‘It’s what we have in our pantry except ours are in tins!’ I don’t really miss those days as the weather was always very hot. However, it was always a pleasure to see the shelves lined with full jars. Judy Stuart (Hawke’s Bay)

I only have to feed one person. So, instead of cooking in a hot steamy kitchen preserving food on 30 degree summer days, I mostly eat seasonally. Sometimes it does mean eating peaches fresh off my own trees three times a day. But I love peaches, and both before and after the run of peaches, I am eating different fruit varieties. I trade surpluses with friends for other food. The rest of the surplus goes into the freezer. It’s much less work than preserving the old way. Fruit and veg can be frozen with minimal prep and some can be frozen raw. Judith Yeatman (Darfield)