Feeding the farm family: Domestic outbuildings and traditional food ways in the Blue Ridge

Chronicle of the Early American Industries Association, Inc., The, Sep 2002 by Wyatt, Sherry Joines

More than one oral history participant commented "We didn't have much, but we had plenty to eat." The farm family enjoyed a wealth of food during even the hardest times because of the preparation undertaken by its mothers. Much of the work required to preserve enough food for the winter fell to her and her daughters in addition to "working the garden" where most of the family's vegetables were produced. The chore of preserving food did not wait until the end of the summer. Instead, farm women pickled, packed, and canned "all summer long."13

Women preserved as much food as possible during the summer. They were usually so successful in their effort that the family had more food than they needed for the winter. But, the preservation of food was not always trustworthy. For example, the process of creating jelly or jam from fruit was similar to pickling. The large amount of sugar in the cooked fruit acted like the vinegar pickling brine to help preserve freshness. After preparation, the jelly was placed in a container and covered from dust, often not sealed in any way. Although a layer of mold formed on the jelly's top, the food beneath was usually edible. 14 Repulsive by modern standards, jelly, pickled food, and food kept in crocks placed in the spring could all develop mold or spoil altogether. This biological process wasted food and, with expanding scientific knowledge of bacteria during the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries, began to be seen as unhealthful.

It was during this era of technological and scientific innovation that canning, known during the 1820s and brought to its commercial fruition by Gail Borden's condensed milk in 1856,15 became more widely disseminated for home use. By the 1910s, canning, the process of sealing food in glass jars, had become the dominant method of food preservation in Alleghany County. Early canning involved bringing food to boiling temperature, pouring it into the glass cans, sprinkling a product called canning acid on top, and tightening the zinc lid over a rubber seal. Corn, tomatoes, and green beans could all be easily canned as could sweet potatoes when packed in syrup. Sausage, too, could be canned. Made from pork shoulder and scrap meat ground by hand, and mixed in a large dish pan with sage, brown sugar, salt, and pepper, the sausage was formed into small cakes, fried, and packed into cans with the grease from frying. The can would be inverted and the hot grease sealed the lid.

By the late 1920s, the cold-pack canner had come into common use in Allegheny County. This was an important tool that helped revolutionize the way farm women preserved their food. The canner was a large pot with a wire rack that held the can in a hot water bath. With our modern understanding of safe food practices, the hot water bath method utilized by the cold-pack canner is no longer recommended since it does not bring the cans to very high temperatures.

This factor was acknowledged by the oral history participants who often commented that it "was a wonder" they didn't all get sick. The cold-pack method was an improvement over the earlier hot-pack method, however. Now meat, such as pork and beef tenderloin, could be cut into strips and canned. Even pickled items were often processed in cans to ensure freshness without having to be stored in the springhouse. The introduction of the pressure cooker by the late 1940s provided a more certain way to ensure food freshness since it reached higher temperatures, creating better seals on the can lids and making the food much safer to consume.