Getting our cans in gear
I’m a newbie when it comes to vegetable gardens, but I’m holding my own as I finish with a modicum of success this second summer. Gardening cam on my radar after last year’s empty store shelves due to COVD-19 disruptions had hit home the reality that it might be wise to plan ahead. Part of that planning would be to grow some of our own food.
Not only has it been satisfying to bite into a sun-warmed tomato standing right in my own garden, the experience is has been gratifying for many reasons. It’s meditative to spend time outdoors. It’s empowering to grow nourishing food. It’s freeing; you can reduce reliance on someone or something else you have little control over. And it’s gratifying and fun. There’s nothing like realizing your efforts in sustainable and sharing both the process and the partaking with family and friends.
I’d fantasized about the romantic notion of eating what came from my own summer garden in the dead of winter, but I didn’t know the first thing about canning. I yearned for pantry shelves that held the endeavors of my own kitchen. My grandmother and grandfather had a garden behind their old New Englander just outside of Boston. I remember the homemade mint jelly and the piccalilli on their pantry shelves lined in calico contact paper. There was something loving and comforting about those simple jars revealing all their care and hard work. The garden, with its peppery and sticky tomato leaves wafted the air where my grandfather spent much of his summer days, planting, tending, and finally harvesting the bounty. My grandparents worked
in the kitchen after the harvest to put this food they’d grown up for the winter. If the sentiment could be tasted, their offerings were injected with what could only be described as love.
And everything tastes better when it’s made with love and care.
I can hear the two of them bantering over the large white sink as they washed the vegetables and pulled the stems, prepping them for the oven, after roasting, combining and blending the ingredients, filling the jars, and later in the quiet of the afternoon, delighting to the sound of the lids snapping shut as they cooled and contracted.
Last winter I ventured as far as filling Ziplock bags with cooked tomatoes from my first garden. It was a way to have garden salsa in the dead of winter and it worked.
And I’d been reluctant to can. There were reasons. A fear of botulism. A lack of confidence for lack of experience. The persistent belief that I didn’t need to can at all. It was work and time-consuming. After all, we live in the modern world and canning seems, well it’s just out of step with a fast-paced contemporary life.
So why did I yearn to partake in this long-held practice? Why did I envision my pantry filled with nourishment which I had made possible? Was I peeling back the layers of a history lost and wanting to be found?
As I was mulling over these questions, I got a text from friends about getting together to can. My interested friend, had wanted to learn for awhile. She would bring a large pot with a rack for “bathing” the jars to bring
them up to temperature after they were filled. We would process the tomatoes from my garden this time. And since they were naturally acidic, and we wouldn’t be adding meat, they would not need pressure cooking, just a standard bathing
Once back in my kitchen, I rinsed the tomatoes and removed the stems, placing each to dry on dish towels spread out on the counter. Drizzled in olive oil, salt and pepper they went whole into baking dishes and into the oven at 400 degrees for 25 minutes or until they began to split slightly, their aroma pleasantly escaping. Meanwhile, onions simmered in a heavy bottomed pot until transparent and soft.
Whew. It was tiresome, but good work. I slept well dreaming of tomatoes – I swear, they were dancing in my head!
The next day my friends joined in the preparation bringing their knowledge, their tools, their stories and their love and patience.
The pots (I made three batches) were removed from the refrigerator and warmed on the range and then set aside. I dragged out the blender. We filled the giant canning bather with water about halfway and put that on the boil, lid on top. The mashed tomatoes were blended and mixed with three cans of tomato paste to thicken the sauce. Then the filling of the pint-sized mason jars began. It was messy. We fussed. But we laughed.
I was surprised to read the ball jars were made in the USA. In fact, the whole industry, from tomato and herb garden to kitchen to canners to jars could claim that label.
We formed an assembly line of sorts to bring the process home; jars were filled, placed in a rack to be submerged, lifted to drip dry, excess dried with a towel, and covered with
special two-piece lids.
Satisfied the jars were covered and cooling properly, and the kitchen cleaned, we stood in the front hall hugging our goodbyes until next time and making plans for canning jams and soups.
I closed the door, filled to the brim, just like all of those jars.
Later on, I began my own labels with a pen and paper at the table, just like my grandparents had, just as the first lid softly popped.
Bonnie J. Toomey’s stories, essays, and poems have been featured in Baystateparent Magazine, New Hampshire Parents Magazine, Baystateparent Echo, Penwood Review and Solace in a Book. She worked as an adjunct at Plymouth State University in New Hampshire where she earned a master’s in literacy. She writes about life in the 21st century and lives in New Hampshire with her husband. Learn more at www.the deep beauty book.com/writers2/bonnie-j-toomey.