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Canning, an Amish pantry and shelf space real estate
All that is required to put some humility into me is a visit to my Amish friend's home. The last time I visited they were busy canning a bin of apples; not a basket, not a banana box, an 18 bushel wooden bin. The kind that comes straight from the commercial orchard. They already had it about half empty. Rebecca greeted me at the door. Two sons and her husband were busy coring and cutting out bad spots. The wood burning canner was fired up behind the house and one daughter was busy pouring apple sauce into quart jars. There was already an impressive display of quart jars cooling on the table. Her husband explained they were canning sauce not only for their family but also for two other families as well.
I'd seen Rebecca's pantry before. Like everything else in her home it was clean, uncluttered and organized. The pantry is in the basement cool room that runs the length of the cold (north) side of her home. There are multiple shelves on each of the long walls in the narrow dark room. The shelves are filled with canning jars about three or four deep. The jars contained pickles, fruits, vegetables, jellies and jams. They are lined up like different colored jewels in a bracelet. These jars will feed her family through the winter when the garden does not produce and bought produce is more expensive. What finally dawned on me this visit was that all the jars were quarts. One quart canning jar takes up a lot less shelf space than its equivalent four pint jars. She has a finite amount of storage and has to make the best and most efficient use of it she can. Pint jars evidently are reserved for those bit of leftover that is too small to fill a quart jar. Pints can be tucked into the fridge for relatively immediate use or shared with appreciative "English" (non-Amish) friends. This visit she kindly shared a whole quart!
I've been putting up pickles, meats etc. in pints. Things that come in abundance like apples and peaches were reserved for quart jars. Now I'm planning on switching to quarts for just about everything. We will be better prepared if we have an emergency and get inundated by "relatives" or need stodge and calories to fill hungry tummies and get the work that will need to be done, done. If the power goes out and it usually does during an emergency or there is an interruption in JIT deliveries more work will need to be done by hand. Manual work can burn calories fast especially in bad weather. With the American fanaticism about diet and weight control it may be hard for some to envision extra calories as a "good thing". During an emergency they may be a blessing, just ask those who were stranded on the bridge or in the dome during Katrina. The down side is that if you lose a jar because of a bad seal or breakage a quart represents a significantly larger amount of food loss than a pint. In the mean time I'm looking forward to fresh apple sauce with dinner tonight.
I'd seen Rebecca's pantry before. Like everything else in her home it was clean, uncluttered and organized. The pantry is in the basement cool room that runs the length of the cold (north) side of her home. There are multiple shelves on each of the long walls in the narrow dark room. The shelves are filled with canning jars about three or four deep. The jars contained pickles, fruits, vegetables, jellies and jams. They are lined up like different colored jewels in a bracelet. These jars will feed her family through the winter when the garden does not produce and bought produce is more expensive. What finally dawned on me this visit was that all the jars were quarts. One quart canning jar takes up a lot less shelf space than its equivalent four pint jars. She has a finite amount of storage and has to make the best and most efficient use of it she can. Pint jars evidently are reserved for those bit of leftover that is too small to fill a quart jar. Pints can be tucked into the fridge for relatively immediate use or shared with appreciative "English" (non-Amish) friends. This visit she kindly shared a whole quart!
I've been putting up pickles, meats etc. in pints. Things that come in abundance like apples and peaches were reserved for quart jars. Now I'm planning on switching to quarts for just about everything. We will be better prepared if we have an emergency and get inundated by "relatives" or need stodge and calories to fill hungry tummies and get the work that will need to be done, done. If the power goes out and it usually does during an emergency or there is an interruption in JIT deliveries more work will need to be done by hand. Manual work can burn calories fast especially in bad weather. With the American fanaticism about diet and weight control it may be hard for some to envision extra calories as a "good thing". During an emergency they may be a blessing, just ask those who were stranded on the bridge or in the dome during Katrina. The down side is that if you lose a jar because of a bad seal or breakage a quart represents a significantly larger amount of food loss than a pint. In the mean time I'm looking forward to fresh apple sauce with dinner tonight.