The Six Weeks That Decided the Winter
Harlan Fenwick
60 views
In August of 1934, in a kitchen that was already unbearably hot,
a woman would light the stove and keep it lit for fourteen hours.
She would do that most days for about six weeks. At the end of it
there were several hundred glass jars on a cellar shelf, and
those jars were the difference between a household that ate
through the winter and one that did not.
Canning season was the largest single piece of work in the
American domestic year. It was almost entirely done by women, it
appeared in no economic figure anybody collected, and it has
disappeared so completely that most Americans have never watched
anybody do it.
This is what went into the jars, how the cellar was arranged, and
why a full shelf in October told a family exactly what kind of
winter was coming.
Note: home canning has real safety requirements that were not
well understood in the 1930s, and the guidance has been revised
since. Nothing here is a procedure — get current extension
service recommendations if you want to do this.
Harlan Fenwick keeps an almanac of what America ate between 1929
and 1941.
Harlan Fenwick is a character. The records are real.
#greatdepression #foodhistory #canning #americanhistory #history
5 Comments
And "too tight", means "too full". You need headroom, when bottling. Because the heat of the water makes the food expand in the bottle and can over flow, getting gunk in the lid and neck of the bottle and you will not get a good seal and thus, spoilage.
Making a mistake or two, I am sure they would just eat those ones right away in the next few meals. But a quarter or even half of your preserved bottles spoil, especially if you didn't know till it was too late, practically reaching for it in the dead of winter, you could be up a creek and without a paddle, if there was no alternative.
I think the basic knowledge is good. Maybe even get taught in school. But the actual act of canning, for many people, is pointless. Caned food can last for months or more. You only open what you are going to use that day or the next. Refrigerated food, only lasts for about a week. So there is that...
The Six Weeks That Decided the Winter
Harlan Fenwick
60 views
In August of 1934, in a kitchen that was already unbearably hot,
a woman would light the stove and keep it lit for fourteen hours.
She would do that most days for about six weeks. At the end of it
there were several hundred glass jars on a cellar shelf, and
those jars were the difference between a household that ate
through the winter and one that did not.
Canning season was the largest single piece of work in the
American domestic year. It was almost entirely done by women, it
appeared in no economic figure anybody collected, and it has
disappeared so completely that most Americans have never watched
anybody do it.
This is what went into the jars, how the cellar was arranged, and
why a full shelf in October told a family exactly what kind of
winter was coming.
Note: home canning has real safety requirements that were not
well understood in the 1930s, and the guidance has been revised
since. Nothing here is a procedure — get current extension
service recommendations if you want to do this.
Harlan Fenwick keeps an almanac of what America ate between 1929
and 1941.
Harlan Fenwick is a character. The records are real.
#greatdepression #foodhistory #canning #americanhistory #history