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There was not a special day for canning nor a
special time during the day. Vegetables and fruit did not understand
about such things. They grew and ripened at their own pace and
it was my Mother and my Aunt Merica's duty to pick them at the
absolute proper time. Peas must be filled out, tender and sweet.
No one wanted a flat, tasteless, immature pea picked a day or
two too soon; nor did anyone want one picked a day or so after
its prime when the sweetness was gone and the pea hardening.
Among the pea vines Mother and Aunt Merica knew to pick the
pods of a certain shade of green and a certain feel of moist
crispness.
Corn must be full of milk and never hard. When
it was coming in, they went down the row, pulling back a bit
of the shuck, pinching the top grain, accepting or rejecting
the ear.
The beans were eaten and canned at all stages:
before the bean seed developed, any time as the beans were growing
to maturity, at maturity when they were shelled out of their
moist, limp and yellowing hulls. Any remaining beans hung yellow
and dry an the dying vines and were gathered before the frost,
shelled and stored in the old gray bag hanging in the shed to
be used as seeds next year. I liked to take it down and run
the many colored beans through my fingers.
Twice each day three or four vegetables were gathered
for both dinner and supper. This meant that all the vegetables
and fruit were always under the watchful eyes of Mama and Aunt
Merica. They could guess that the corn would have to be canned
next week, or that most of the tomatoes would be ready by Thursday.
They might find that the peas could not wait; they would have
to be canned that day's morning.
Mason jars, which we generally called cans, were
brought down from the cellar, washed, rinsed and turned upside
down on dishtowels. Lids and rubber bands were assembled and
washed. The tongs for lifting the hot jars in and out of the
hot-water bath were laid out. The Ball Blue Book of Canning
and Preserving was found in the recipe drawer. Whatever it said
to do, we did.
Mama and Aunt Merica preferred to can early in
the morning, before the day got hot. The kitchen would be hot
enough from the fire in the big iron stove. The oil stove was
no good for canning; you needed lots of space for kettles of
boiling water, for parboiling vegetable and for processing the
jars in the hot-water bath.
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