On Mon, 19 Nov 2018 19:13:30 -0500, Joy Beeson
wrote:

On Mon, 19 Nov 2018 07:41:32 +0700, John B. slocomb
wrote:

Sure they did. Just like they grew their own meat and vegetables and
salted, dried or "canned" them for the winter. Some of them even made
their own clothes and even stranger, blankets for their beds :-)

Which made me wonder how old home canning is. I looked up Ball
Brothers (living in Indiana naturally made me think of them first) and
they started making jars in 1884, when Mason's patent ran out.

That patent was filed in 1858. And it was for an "improved" fruit
jar, so it's got to go back a bit further.

According to the Internet, canning" apparently originated with
Nicholas Appert in France who. in about 1810 introduced a method that
involved heat-processing food in glass jars reinforced with wire and
sealing them with wax.

This was in response to Napoleon Bonaparte having offered a reward for
whoever could develop a safe, reliable food preservation method for
the army.

Zinc caps and both styles of glass lids were still in use when I was a
child. Hasn't been any change since the invention of the dome lid.

Except today's lids hold "up to eighteen months", and if any of those
made in the forties are still on jars, they are still holding.

Wikipedia says that home canning with jars that used sealing wax to
secure the lids began in the 1830s, remained common until 1890, and
continued into the early twentieth century.

Mom used paraffin as a lid on strawberry preserves. (I don't recall
preserving any other kind of fruit.) She would put some shavings of
paraffin into the bottom of a jar and pour in hot preserves. The wax
would melt, rise to the top, and seal the jar. Then she'd put a lid
on to keep dust off. Or maybe it was waxed paper and a rubber band.

Having four children, she put strawberries up in pint jars. We would
fish the berries out to spread on our bread, and pour the syrup on ice
cream.

Ah, she had to have stopped using wax to seal preserves about the time
we started to put them on ice cream -- she froze them after we got a
home freezer. But after we moved to the Colfax Place a few years
after Dad retired, Mom and I made a batch of wild-strawberry jam that
we picked along the railroad tracks, a very few half-pint jars. (The
railroad used 2,4-D to keep the weeds down. Poison ivy is
particularly sensitive to 2,4-D and the spray mostly didn't get down
to where the strawberries were.) The wild strawberries made thick jam
where we were expecting runny preserves, and the wax didn't seal
perfectly.

It was really, really good.

I vaguely remember fruit jam or jelly being preserved in jars with a
layer of wax but most things were "put up" in those all glass jars
with the wire "latch" that held the top on tightly. Assuming no jars
got broken all you needed "next year" was the rubber "rings" that
actually sealed the cap and they were available at any grocery store.

Of course, back in those days I never heard of a "working mother"
either. Married women were at home to take care of the house and
children, prepare the food and in many cases make the clothing. In
fact one of the reasons for talking to the girl's father before
announcing one's intent to court the girl was for the family to
determine that you "could support the girl in the manner to which she
was accustomed" :-)

cheers,

John B.