Preserving Food

[Daisy]

It's the time of year when I get the urge to fill the cupboards with summer goodies to cheer us up through the long dark days of winter.

With the current rates of inflation being what they are, I imagine many of us are looking at ways to economise or be more careful what we spend our money on.

Our parents' and grand parents' generation would have been busy preserving everything from fruit, vegetables grown in the garden or allotment, eggs, salting meat and all sorts of things - even collecting sloes to make gin for Christmas. No freezers, of course.

As I mentioned in Drop in, we were given about 3 kg of delicious plums a few days ago and OH made plum jam. We don't eat a lot of jam, but plum is one of my favourites and it gives me a lot of pleasure to see a couple of rows of jars sitting on a shelf in the garage just waiting to remind us of summer bounty.

I have no idea whether the cost of sugar, gas etc makes this cost effective or not - I'm sure if you costed OH's time it wouldn't be - but you can't beat the pleasure of having something home made!

What do you remember of this late summer/autumn hive of activity? Did you help, and even more importantly do you still follow any of those traditions?

[Plantaholic]

My OH and I were keen on using our garden harvest, I bottled fruit, and up to last year I made plum jam, most of it I gave away. We used to gather elderflower from the hedgerows, OH made a sparkling wine from them and he also kept bees. When the children were at home we always had puddings which used up the garden produce. This used to be a cherry growing area and when we moved in we had seven cherry trees all producing bumper crops as most people had cherry trees to pollinate others. Of course most of the veg came from our garden produced by OH. My Mil was a country woman and showed me how to bottle fruit, cook a pigs head etc. I don’t think the present younger generation have the time or inclination to grow and preserve food as it is all on the supermarket shelves.

[Nanto2girls]

I only preserve food by freezing.

When i was little,my granny used to make a lot of jam.
Another neighbour made chutney.
As i remember things used to get swapped with other neighbours.
My grandad always had an allotment, and veg and tomatoes used to be handed round the neighbours as well.
As you say Daisy, no freezers in those days.

[Oma]

When we had the allotment many years ago I froze what surplus we needed and gave the rest away ,
B makes nice rhubarb jam when it’s cheap and in season
We Freeze a lot of stuff and I vacuum pack a lot ,
Just yesterday we had a bag of cherry tomatoes and they were going a bit soft so I vacuumed them and put them on the freezer to use as sauce ,
Today B chopped a head of celery and did the same it will be used in soups etc ,

Our Neighbour brought us 3lb of fresh picked Blackberries on Friday , he brings them every year ,
I wash them let them drain then put them on a tray to freeze flat before bagging them in portions for the freezer .

We always have a kilner jar of pickled red cabbage in the fridge and Fresh ginger in syrup
that B does

Nanto
When I was small I remember it was all big families and people were poor ,
My mother would make big huge pans of veg soup with veg from the garden of a neighbour who would give his surplus away
She would send half over the road to one neighbour

This neighbour made amazing fish cakes and she would send some our way
I loved them but it was years later I found out she made them with fish heads she bought cheap from the local fish monger

If I had known that I’m not sure I would have ate them 😁 but they were very tasty

Bread cakes pies went from house to house in those days ,
wouldn’t happen now sadly .

[Daisy]

that B does

Nanto
When I was small I remember it was all big families and people were poor ,
My mother would make big huge pans of veg soup with veg from the garden of a neighbour who would give his surplus away
She would send half over the road to one neighbour

This neighbour made amazing fish cakes and she would send some our way
I loved them but it was years later I found out she made them with fish heads she bought cheap from the local fish monger

If I had known that I’m not sure I would have ate them 😁 but they were very tasty

Oma, your story about the fish cakes made me smile. My grandfather and uncle were butchers, so my dad was used to 'eating nose to tail' - and he knew how to prepare and cook them. Chaps - brined for days on end ( I can't remember how long) and then boiled, pigs trotters and calve's foot jelly, dripping from a beef roast - eaten on toast, broth made from marrow bones, and of course offal such as liver and kidneys. The only things my mum absolutely refused to have in the house were brains and chitterlings - unless they were for the dog of course! A few fish cakes would have been a very nice change! (We did have 'ordinary' meat as well!)

[Gemini]

I have never made jam! My breadmaker has a jam making option, one day I WILL do it!

I remember one year when I was still living at home a friend gave my mum a huge amount of raspberries from her garden. Mum made jam, which was delicious. My love of raspberry jam started there

We part cook and freeze apples from our tree to use in pies and crumbles throughout winter. I make apple sauce for pork and freeze that. I never have to buy any.

My SIL3 does lot of preserving in jars. I can't remember the term right now (not pickling) but it will come to me!

[Oma]

Oh god Daisy ,
Offal is my worst nightmare
Although I will eat liver ,
My uncle used to eat pigs hearts , just the thought turns my stomach and I hate kidneys ,

My father loved Tripe with vinegar and onions yuk 🤢

[Gemini]

Offal YUK!

My mum loved tripe, cow's heel and pig's trotters. Dad and I did not partake!
I'm not sure if dad would eat tongue, which mum loved, but I would not.

[Plantaholic]

My mother would cook a tongue at Christmas

[Grauntie Mag]

My father was a greengrocer and also grew veg and fruit at home. We had an old ice cream freezer (the type that had lift up lids each side) in the kitchen and mother used to freeze surplus fruit and veg. She was ahead of her time!
I have made redcurrant jelly this year and will be making sloe gin if there is a bountiful harvest. Lots of apple sauce in my freezer from donated apples. 😁

[Daisy]

We had cooked tongue as well. I have to confess, I thought of that as "mainstream" in the same way as ham you buy in the supermarket! I also buy it raw for Eva, and she loves it!

[Daisy]

Grauntie, we posted together. My dad used to make ice cream to sell in our shop and we had one of those freezers as well. I used to make lollipops to earn my pocket money. But then he switched that part of the shop to fruit and veg. I remember it was always seasonal, apart from bananas, which I think were the only imported items.

Most people came in every day, or every other day to buy what they needed for that day. It was a relatively poor, working-class area and there were no frills or 'fancy' ingredients!

[Grauntie Mag]

I used to love Christmas when we would have Dates, satsumas, muscat grapes and nuts. Apart from that it was all fruit and veg in season as you say, Daisy. (Apart from bananas, oranges and lemons. Oh yes, pomegranates too. 😬)

[Daisy]

Grauntie - I had totally forgotten about pomegranates - eaten with a pin, of course! I didn't think about oranges and lemons or tangerines either.

I can remember we'd get a few lettuces and tomatoes in for Christmas, too.

[Gemini]

I loved pomegranates when I was a child!