Canning Jam Part 1: How to Find your Passion and Get Started With Canning
Last week I made our family’s favorite Strawberry Raspberry Jam. After asking my readers on my Facebook page if they wanted to learn more about canning, the cries for help came in! By the way, did you know that RE has its own Facebook page? Join in daily on the conversation for easy tips and recipes! Also, for the next 5 days I’ll be sharing posts on canning that I hope you’ll find inspirational.
My love of canning started years ago when I was a little girl. My Grandma Dubs canned and my Mother canned. I’m sure my Great-Grandmother, Rosa, and Great-great Grandmother canned, too.
You can gain all the knowledge you need from canning websites, books, tutorials, … but I still say the best way to learn is to experience it alongside someone who’s done it before.
So I learned how to can from my Mother.
And my mother learned from her Mother. (Top photo is my Grandma Dubs, in her garden on Vilas Road, Medford, Oregon, over 25 years ago. I so love this picture. And the picture below is my Mom’s incredible Pear Butter.)
My sisters and I would dance around in Grandma’s mud room, from where we’d step down into the cold, dark pantry lined with canning jars. We’d play house, act, play and pretend, all in the midst of the wonderful scent of canning jars. Have you ever noticed how absolutely yummy a pantry of canning jars smells? Sweet and savory both. And then there was a big bucket of fresh dill ready for Grandma’s canned dill pickles. I’ll never forget that smell.
My sisters and I would tie on Grandma’s apron, while one would wear Grandpa’s knee-high rubber boots, and the other would put on a garden hat.
My childhood friends would tag along to Grandma’s mud room, usually while my Mother was helping my Grandma can, and we’d play for hours. All make-believe. No televisions or video games or electronics. There’s nothing like using your imagination with a few farming props! We had great fun.
(Picture below of me, left, and my childhood friend, Betsy, right. Don’t you just love our buttoned sweaters?)
I have many memories of canning with my Mother. My little hand was much smaller than hers, thus it was my job to fill the jars with peaches and pears, turning them over perfectly–they all had to face the same direction.
A pretty jar was very important to my Mom.
And a pretty jar is still very important to me. (My sis and me canning pears.)
If you don’t have family history like I had, canning alongside a friend or mentor will for sure take the intimidation out of canning for you. You get to watch, learn, actually get in there and do it yourself (not just watch a tutorial), with an expert right next to you.
Also, the benefit of canning, besides making healthy foods for your family, is friendship and community.
How to get started with canning
1. Find a mentor or a friend who knows how to can
2. Ask if she’d be willing to teach you or if you could work alongside her
3. Buy the supplies, preferably used, which will save you money (next post)
4. Start small, don’t tell yourself you’re going to can jams, peaches, pears, chutneys, tomato sauce all in one summer – start with jam or something very simple that will give you confidence of the canning process
One thing I learned about canning was to include my kids. It not only makes canning go quicker, but hopefully they will get the “canning bug,” and will keep this lost art going in their families. (It’s really easy to say “forget it” because of the time involved.)
What is it about canning that interests you? Do you already know how, or what has inspired you to start?
Join me tomorrow for Canning Jam Part II: What Supplies You Will Need. This 5-part series will ultimately be on making jam, but in the Fall I’ll be talking about how to can with a water bath.
Pear butter…that brings back such wonderful memories of my grandmother! Are you willing to share your recipe? I should also mention that I love your blog!
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i just canned for the very first time yesterday….plum jam!! i can’t even describe how exciting and fulfilling it was to hear all those little lids popping and see those jars lined up on the counter full of food…that *i* made!! and then to hear my family rave about how great it tasted when we had toast and jam for dessert {because they couldn’t wait to try it}…it almost made me cry! {hormonal much? lol} it certainly is a lost art…but it won’t be lost in my family!
thanks for this series…it’s just beautiful!
Ah, I love canning. I grew up in a family where canning wasn’t an annual treat – it only happened if there was really time. My mother had never did a hot-water bath, though. She did freezer jams, which were still delicious.
I’m a huge history person and I enjoy making things from scratch and serving those to my husband/family/friends like they did in the olden days. Last year when my husband and I first moved out onto our own, I watched tutorials for weeks until I built enough confidence to can something. I bought numerous books, watched what horrible things could go wrong (definitely not something you should do before preparing to can), bought all my ingredients/gear and set out to make some apple butter.
I made the apple butter with a combination of recipes (the flavor turned out just like the store bought ones), put them in a hot-water bath, pulled them out after their due time, and waited. It was the longest night and following day of my cooking career… finding out if something worked or didn’t. I’m proud to say it did (I might even have cried? Who knows.) and since then I’ve made numerous things.
So I really appreciate this series of posts you’re about to do. I’m a huge believer in people bring history (if that’s what one would call it) back to life and doing a little more work to experience something extremely enjoyable down the road.
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Both my mother’s grandmother, and my dad’s family canned, my aunt still talks about canning with my grandmother. We canned jams and pickles when I was younger. Lately we’ve just done pickles, either canned or refrigerator. Personally I like the idea of “putting up” my own food, and it’s fun to take to family gatherings.