Trivia

As we proceed through the transition from summer to autumn, we undergo more than the annual change of seasons since this phenomenon also produces a series of lifestyle and cultural transitions as well. What I mean is it marks the end of the summer holiday period for children—and by and large, families—and a return to school and the excitement of the prospect of a new grade. 

Then, we complete our excitement of the concluding professional baseball season and the emergence of the various division leaders seeking to be the World Series teams, followed by the excitement of the beginnings of the professional football season and the traditional Sunday afternoon television sessions. 

However, while these predictable transition patterns are common to our current patterns of the changing season, there is another seasonal phenomenon that seems to be largely forgotten but clearly imbedded as a memory of my Emporium heritage.

I am referring to canning.

To begin, we have become accustomed to and even take for granted the contemporary sophisticated commercial food distribution benefits we experience today in our daily lives. Through these systems we can visit our local grocery store on any given day and find a wide range of products including produce of many kinds, from multiple areas of the world and irrespective of their traditional ripening season. 

Then, even if we don’t purchase them on the spot, again, through modern technology, we can be assured that through freezing, multiple other preservation techniques and storage appliances, we can be assured that the range of “fresh” food options will still be there for our future shopping trips. However, those of my generation will recall that there was a time when these options did not exist and canning reflected this.

As I recall my youth in Emporium, autumn was the only time when we could enjoy the ripening and harvesting of a variety of produce such as fruit, vegetables and various other crops, mostly only local or regional varieties. While we shopped for them at our local grocery stores and as I recall from our Gross family store, the products would be displayed in bushel baskets sitting around the outside of the entrance or in temporary trays inside that had been constructed for the season.  

I don’t recall any outdoor produce stands since I cannot recall any local produce businesses. In fact, my parents would travel to Lock Haven on Saturdays during harvest season to purchase fresh produce for canning from farmers who would park their trucks on a side street as part of the weekly produce market. Then there was no evidence of any packaging or presentation that provided for long time storage of this fresh produce. Families resorted to a practice of preserving these products by “processing” them at home through canning.

Canning was a complex of multiple steps beginning with cleaning and preparing the food whether by chopping, peeling, pitting or whatever was relevant to the produce. Then, family recipes were used to cook the food where necessary and as a result the home was often filled with an exotic and wonderful aroma that was so characteristic of the process. One year my mother prepared homemade ketchup for canning that involved further processing of the tomatoes and the addition of a range of wonderful aromatic spices.

Then, the complex process of preparing the food was more than matched by another complex, multistep process of preparing the canning containers. Despite the term, “canning,” the containers were generally glass jars that were commonly referred to as Mason jars. To assure safe and healthy packaging of the food, these containers and their special two-piece lids had to be “sterilized” through extensive boiling and preparation for sealing. The final step then was to place them in a cool, dark environment which usually meant down in the cellar. 

The rewards for all of this were of course the privilege of opening them throughout the succeeding winter and enjoying the taste and memory of these wonderful products. 

Speaking of related memories, if you recall, our high school curriculum of that era included two courses: shop for boys and home ec for girls. Does anyone recall whether the latter included any instruction about canning?