Wednesday, October 3, 2007

Grandma's home cookin'

Canning_2



I spent Friday afternoon helping my mother clean out the basement of her old house.  It is the house she grew up in, and has housed five generations of my family.  One of the tasks Mom had for me was cleaning out a cupboard full of canned fruit that her mother, my maternal grandmother, had canned. 



The steel lid of the first jar disintegrated at the touch of my finger and I thought this was going to be a messy job.  The fruit inside had morphed into an unidentifiable, desiccated black lump. 



While there was no date on that jar, some of them were dated, and most were in much better condition.  The oldest jar I found contained pear halves canned in 1963.  There were a lot of jars of cherries from 1968, which, from the number of jars, must have been a bountiful year.  What amazed me most was the condition of the jars; most of them were still sealed.  The fruit inside looked pretty good, if maybe just a bit darker than it should be.  There was one jar of tomatoes from 1972 that was bright red and looked like it had been canned yesterday.  I was starting to get hungry. 



Mom thought I was nuts, but I had to inspect every jar before I threw it out.  See, I never knew my grandmother; she died three years before I was born.  To me she had always been just a character in a story or a woman in a black and white photograph.  Now for the first time I was holding something that was a part of her life.  It was something tangible that I could feel.  Something I could heft and know that her hands had once hefted it too.  She was becoming a real person right there in my hands.   



I knew what I had to do.  I had to eat some of Grandma’s home cookin’. 



I found a small jar of black cherry jelly from 1971—four years older than me.  The seal was still tight, the jelly looked fresh.  The lid didn’t have any of the corrosion I had seen on the other jars so I set it aside.  I envisioned myself going on a bike ride with my jersey pocket stuffed with a peanut butter and jelly sandwich made with Grandma’s jelly.  I thought I would finally have a snack from Grandma’s kitchen. 



Again, my mom thought I was nuts, and when I mentioned the idea to Mags she forbade it.  She says a fresh looking jar could still be contaminated with botulism—or something worse. 



So sadly, I have put the idea on hold.  I still want to have a taste of my grandmother’s life, but not if it’s going to kill me.  I’d like to get to know her, but not that soon.  I wonder if any of you know if there is a way I can get it tested.  Until then, I have set the jar aside to wait.  It’s waited 36 years, I’m sure it can wait a little longer. 



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