Thought for food

There were more than two fascinating things about my father's Aunt Dot from Philadelphia, but I will just share these two:

A - she grew up on the Jersey Shore down around Cape May, and one of her childhood playmates was a little lass who grew to be...drum roll please...Mrs Paul of seafood fame!

2 - she worked as a packer for W. Atlee Burpee & Co, the premier seed supplier. So we never lacked for the freshest of corn and other vegetables and flowers around the yard during my Opie-esque childhood.

I got to thinking about my childhood days running around, barefoot boy with a hoe, when I saw an article about something that's becoming popular again.

People had a lot of time on their hands this year, and that led to having a lot of dirt on their hands, and fertilizer. Being home and having nothing much to do, many people started home gardens as a way to spend time in the out of doors, and also get a some kohlrabi and carrots and poppies for the table. Seeds were bought, seeds were planted.

And then...

After a record-setting spring season for sellers of seeds and garden implements and pain medications (Google searches for "growing food" were up 4650%, and the good people at W. Atlee Burpee & Co had the biggest sales year in their  144-year history), here came the crops!

So many that people were begging their friends to take eggplants, cucumbers, and squash that many got into the habit of locking their cars and night and leaving the porch lights off, lest they find themselves with someone else's bounteous harvest all over the Adirondack chair or the front seat of the Biscayne.

And all that leads to the magic of home canning!

“I have definitely noticed an uptick in canning interest during the pandemic,” says Marisa McClellan. Ms McClellan is a canning expert (who awards these titles?) who runs the Food in Jars website. “Traffic is up on my site, I'm getting more canning questions, and there's a shortage of both mason jars and lids.”

I saw that reflected on the community social pages.  Where to find Mason jars? And the answers came back that stores all over are backordered on canning supplies and there won't be more supplies for a month or two.

Indeed, stores across America are reporting canning supply backorders that won't be filled for months.

But if you find and fill Mason jars, you are taking part in home technology that has been around since the 1850s, when one John Landis Mason, a tinsmith from New Jersey, figured out how to make screw-top jars that are air-and-water-tight.

Our family used the pre-Mason method, which was to make the jam or whatever you were canning, and then cover the surface of the food with molten Esso wax.

A few takeaway thoughts:

• why do we call it home "canning" when it's not going into a can, but a jar?
• this might be a good time to collect Mason jars for next year. They keep very well unfilled, with no need to seal the lids.
• take some paper towels, put them in a jar, fill the jar with liquid cleanser, put a lid on it, and voila! You have canned your own Lysol Wipes!