Can-do attitude
Growing up in the country, canning and preserving was a way of life, according to Irma Flack.
“I guess I learned from my mother. It had to be done, so I helped. It wasn’t a special thing,” she said. “When things were ready, you did it that day.”
Flack remembers taking corn relish sandwiches in her lunch when she walked to the nearby country school.
Over the years, Flack did plenty of canning as she raised her family of four. Stewed tomatoes and tomato juice were special favourites. During the harvest season, she would come home from her teaching job every day and fill her biggest pot with tomatoes,onions and seasonings to make preserves and then do it all again the next day.
“My family seemed to like what I prepared, and I like to eat,” she said.
Flack passed her skills on to her daughter, although as a city dweller, she has no space to garden and little inclination to do a lot of canning.
For the next generation, the love of canning seems limited to consumption of the finished product.
“My granddaughter is now 26 and busy working,” said Flack. “She’s never been around while I was preserving, but she does like to take away quart sealers of dill pickles.”
These days, Flack lives alone and does far less canning than she used to but her cellar still contains a few special jars for when the grandchildren come.
Beet relish
2 quarts onions
2 quarts cucumbers
1 large cauliflower
Keep vegetable separate after putting through the food chopper. Cover each with boiling water and salt. Let stand over night. Drain in the morning and mix all together.
Make a sauce of:
3 pints vinegar
4 green peppers, chopped fine
6 cups sugar
1/3 cup curry powder
1/3 cup celery seed
2 ounces mustard seed
1/2 cup mustard
Boil sauce and thicken with flour. Add pickles and bring to a boil.
Green tomato pickle
16 cups green tomatoes
2 large onions, sliced
1/4 cup salt
1 quart vinegar, diluted 1/4 water
4 cups brown sugar
2 tbsp whole cloves
1 tbsp allspice
2 tbsp broken stick cinnamon
2 sweet red peppers
3 tbsp mustard seed
Slice tomatoes very thin and arrange with sliced onions in layers. Sprinkle with salt and let stand over night. Drain. Heat vinegar to boiling point. Add spice in bag and all other ingredients. Cook one hour. Bottle and seal.