labour day
actually its the day after labour day. but i formulated this topic yesterday and continued to labour today.
it's pickling time! yesterday i picked squashberries out in back of my garden. my house is built on a steep incline, so i had to literally hang from the branches to stable myself enough to pick. i found the tree last year and was delighted. squash berry jelly is a newfoundland delicacy. i hadn't had it for years.
my young neighbour "matthew", who tells me he is "free" and his grandmother were my audience. we chatted while i picked. matthew kept an eye on the dogs and warned me when the bee was going to bite me.
his nanny spotted and apple tree laden with apples further down the hill. she scampered down the hill to see if she could get some. she came back empty handed but vowed she'd get her husband to take the ladder down and pick some after he finished watching "the story".
an hour later matthew and his nanny dropped by with a bag of apples. so i set to work. apple jelly, squash berry jelly, partridgeberry jam and zucchini mustard pickles. it was a wonderful day. it reminded me of my mother's kitchen . coming home from school on a bright fall day. opening the door and almost being blown away by the pungent aroma of pickle spice, hot vinigar and molten parrafin wax. my mom was not a neat person. she loved to be outdoors in her garden. but she also loved to make pickles. chow-chow, bread and butter pickles, pickled beets, lady astor pickles and her favourite dill pickles. all made with the fruits of her garden. the whole kitchen would have transformed into a pickle factory and labratory. she had a note book in which she would register each bottle by date and type and anything noteworthy about her technique. the kitchen table was covered with cucumbers, beets, green tomatoes, scraps of recipes. pots on the stove boiling over, some with empty jars and lids , the wax melting in a double boiler, vinigar andsugar with cloves , peppercorns, bayleaves,garlic and dill simmering away. the floor was a skating rink of spilled wax.
she would stuff the vegetables in the jar, not nice clean mason jars, but the recycled mayonaise, jam jars , mustard jars and anything that had a cover. the covers were not the original covers. i made a game out of trying to match the lids with the jars, desparately seeking order in my chaotic childhood. after the veggies were ready she would pour the hot spicy, sugary vinigar over the top. i loved to see it trail down through the chunks of cucumbers, beets or tomatoes. once the liquid had settled , she would pour the hot wax over the top of all with peaks of picles peeping out she would add a little melted parrafin in the lid. then cover was installed, the wax dripping down over the sides in droplets , solidifying on the way . she would mark the code on the cover and in the pickle registery and the hot bottles would be placed on the cellar steps. ready to be stored on a dusty shelf in the spooky , musty , mysterious earthen floored basement.
one by one they would be retrieved throughout the winter.we'd have them with supper and sometimes my stepfather would give them away to his buddies. he was always proud of my mom's achievements. the jars would be brought out of the basement washed off before they were handed over.
i was wishing i had my mom's recipes yesterday. alas i wasn't that interested when i was young, later when i moved away and returned home for a visit, she would insist that i take jars of pickles with me, when i left. i didn't have the heart to refuse her even though it was a bother packing them up and carrying them in my suitcase. i was somewhat ashamed of their appearance.
i don't remember when i started to appreciate her effort, but thankfully i did long before she no longer made pickles. perhaps it was when my children were gone to school and i had the time to put down a batch of pickles or jams and jellies. i loved having them come home to those wonderful homey smells. i still do.
today i did the rest of the zucchini mustard pickles, using my very own home grown zucchini. i didn't use parrafin wax, but rather went to the walmart and bought brand new mason jars. it felt pretty good carrying on that tradition. happy labour day!
actually its the day after labour day. but i formulated this topic yesterday and continued to labour today.
it's pickling time! yesterday i picked squashberries out in back of my garden. my house is built on a steep incline, so i had to literally hang from the branches to stable myself enough to pick. i found the tree last year and was delighted. squash berry jelly is a newfoundland delicacy. i hadn't had it for years.
my young neighbour "matthew", who tells me he is "free" and his grandmother were my audience. we chatted while i picked. matthew kept an eye on the dogs and warned me when the bee was going to bite me.
his nanny spotted and apple tree laden with apples further down the hill. she scampered down the hill to see if she could get some. she came back empty handed but vowed she'd get her husband to take the ladder down and pick some after he finished watching "the story".
an hour later matthew and his nanny dropped by with a bag of apples. so i set to work. apple jelly, squash berry jelly, partridgeberry jam and zucchini mustard pickles. it was a wonderful day. it reminded me of my mother's kitchen . coming home from school on a bright fall day. opening the door and almost being blown away by the pungent aroma of pickle spice, hot vinigar and molten parrafin wax. my mom was not a neat person. she loved to be outdoors in her garden. but she also loved to make pickles. chow-chow, bread and butter pickles, pickled beets, lady astor pickles and her favourite dill pickles. all made with the fruits of her garden. the whole kitchen would have transformed into a pickle factory and labratory. she had a note book in which she would register each bottle by date and type and anything noteworthy about her technique. the kitchen table was covered with cucumbers, beets, green tomatoes, scraps of recipes. pots on the stove boiling over, some with empty jars and lids , the wax melting in a double boiler, vinigar andsugar with cloves , peppercorns, bayleaves,garlic and dill simmering away. the floor was a skating rink of spilled wax.
she would stuff the vegetables in the jar, not nice clean mason jars, but the recycled mayonaise, jam jars , mustard jars and anything that had a cover. the covers were not the original covers. i made a game out of trying to match the lids with the jars, desparately seeking order in my chaotic childhood. after the veggies were ready she would pour the hot spicy, sugary vinigar over the top. i loved to see it trail down through the chunks of cucumbers, beets or tomatoes. once the liquid had settled , she would pour the hot wax over the top of all with peaks of picles peeping out she would add a little melted parrafin in the lid. then cover was installed, the wax dripping down over the sides in droplets , solidifying on the way . she would mark the code on the cover and in the pickle registery and the hot bottles would be placed on the cellar steps. ready to be stored on a dusty shelf in the spooky , musty , mysterious earthen floored basement.
one by one they would be retrieved throughout the winter.we'd have them with supper and sometimes my stepfather would give them away to his buddies. he was always proud of my mom's achievements. the jars would be brought out of the basement washed off before they were handed over.
i was wishing i had my mom's recipes yesterday. alas i wasn't that interested when i was young, later when i moved away and returned home for a visit, she would insist that i take jars of pickles with me, when i left. i didn't have the heart to refuse her even though it was a bother packing them up and carrying them in my suitcase. i was somewhat ashamed of their appearance.
i don't remember when i started to appreciate her effort, but thankfully i did long before she no longer made pickles. perhaps it was when my children were gone to school and i had the time to put down a batch of pickles or jams and jellies. i loved having them come home to those wonderful homey smells. i still do.
today i did the rest of the zucchini mustard pickles, using my very own home grown zucchini. i didn't use parrafin wax, but rather went to the walmart and bought brand new mason jars. it felt pretty good carrying on that tradition. happy labour day!
posted by bluebird of paradise at 1:51 PM
1 Comments:
I really love your stories of the life experiences, I can relate to this post having learned the technique from my mother in law, thinking back then why are you doing all this work, now in retrospect I know why!!
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