Preserving the Past

Summer is waning and the last few weeks of the season will find many people turning their attention to preparing for the fall and the eventual winter (ugh!).  For many, especially the Italian community, this means a couple of days of preserving the bounty of their gardens.  I have walked past many an open garage the past two weeks and observed entire families at work on the assembly line prepping, cooking and canning tomatoes.  The smell of garlic, basil and tomato was intoxicating.  But, I got to thinking about how few people I personally know who bother with canning and preserving.

When I was a child I used to love visiting my maternal grandparents' home on Runnymede Rd. and venturing down to the cellar where baskets full of what appeared to be dirt revealed, after further inspection, some of the largest carrots, beets and potatoes I have ever seen.  This was a proper cellar whose only use was the storage of, besides the winter vegetables,  preserved tomatoes, cucumbers and jams and jellies of every fruit grown in Canada. My grandmother would ask us to retrieve one item or another and I always happily complied.  Back then I remember the food somehow tasting just a lot better than what we buy in stores today.

There was one product I was especially fond of: tomato chili.  This was not a spicy chili like salsa but, rather a sweet and sour tomato relish that always, even today, reminds me of those days at my grandparents.  We would always have jars to take home with us when we left, even though my mother also made her own version, and it is still my favourite condiment on hamburgers.  My sisters have both taken a shot at making chili, and while they both make good ones, nothing has ever matched those chilis of my mother and grandmother.  I would occasionally receive a jar from an elderly Mrs. Dart, who's mail I delivered, and her recipe came close to my memory. But the craft seems to have fallen out of favour with most families today.

It's a shame, I think, that our culture no longer preserves food like we used to, and our cellars have all been converted to finished basements which are used instead for recreation, retreat, entertaining or, most often, additional revenue, rather than the year round storage of food and wine.  We can complain all we want about a lack of time but, my grandmother had 10 children and still found the time.  My own mother worked full time as a nurse and had 7 children and still managed to pickle, preserve and jam fresh produce most years.  Certainly modern jobs demand more of our time than ever before but, I do not think it is the demands of work that is to blame, I think it is the demands of our leisure time that is to blame; time spent in front of televisions, gaming consoles and computers.  I think if my mother and grandmother were given a choice between their hobby or today's hobbies they would still find more satisfaction in cooking and preserving - though I think both would be naturals at Grand Theft Auto.

And those additional hours at work have also provided us additional money in our pockets and this has eased the need for preserving.  Why do the work if E.D. Smith and the Smuckers have already done it for you, not to mention the Bicks, the Heinzs and the Aylmers?  In my grandmother's case preserving was a necessity as my grandfather's income, as good as it was, was the only income and to raise 10 children on that required a full time home economist.  My mother and father both worked but I still remember lean times and the supplementation of canned and preserved foods helped stretch the family budget for some of life's "luxuries".

But, just like the food we ate at various holidays, the choices of food for summer picnics at Highland Creek with my uncle doing the barbecuing, the places we shopped for the foods we ate, or even the passing on the fine art of the half clapper top cheddar, canning and preserving were a part of a shared culture that I bet most who grew up in Canada, from Newfoundland to Victoria, can identify with.  It was a learned craft that was passed down and shared so that each generation could have a connection to the previous and succeeding. That is why it is sad to see only a handful of first or second generation Italian-Canadians continuing the yearly tradition.  I wish I had a house with a dark, cool cellar and a kitchen with the space to do the canning to resurrect the tomato chili of my mother and grandmother. Or at the very least, friends who had those things along with a generous nature (hint hint).

If this inspires you to learn more about canning and preserving may I suggest this link.