19-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:
Monday, September 14, 1914: Did the washing this morning, while mother canned peaches. I helped eat some, too.
Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:
Here are the directions in a hundred-old-cookbook for canning peaches:
Canned Peaches
4 pounds peaches
2 pounds sugar
1 pint water
Pare peaches and cook in sugar and water, either whole or in halves, until tender. Arrange in jars, fill with syrup, and seal.
Pears, pineapples, and plums are canned in the same way as peaches.
Lowney’s Cook Book (1907)
I hope that Grandma’s mother was already very knowledgeable about canning because this recipe does not give me anywhere near enough information to even begin trying to can peaches.
The best part of canning fruit. Helping to eat it 🙂
I agree!
Fresh peaches, especially if they ripe and right off the tree, are wonderful. 🙂
No kidding!
I agree!
The only way back then to have fruit in the winter.
I think that people sometimes ate canned fruit for dessert during the winter back then.
Our peaches have been ripe and delicious.
I’m jealous– I wish that we had a peach tree. 🙂
Yes, old recipes leave a lot to be desired. Many are very vague and assume you already know how to do something!!!
I agree! There was an assumption that the recipe user was a very skilled cook and she (it usually would have been a she back then) just needed a few clues about the ingredients, etc.
Looks like there’s some assuming the ratios are all one needs and the skill of canning already mastered. I’d be completely lost!
Cookbooks back then seemed to assume that every cook was already an expert.
Syrup? What syrup? Where? 😉
Doesn’t everyone know the recipe for syrup? 🙂
Not only did I can peaches, but I seriously considered the crab apple recipe you posted a long time ago. I had pinned it and was very pleased when it went back to your blog. I still have a ton of crab apples and may try it today.
If you haven’t already made the recipe, I’d encourage you to give it a try. I think that you’d like it. I enjoy cooking with crab apples, and think you’d like them.
I loved canning, but even more I loved the results. The fruit cellar was filled with those quart jars of peaches, cherries, plums, rhubarb and strawberries, spiced crabapples. They shone like jewels — sometimes I’d go down there just to stare at them.
I also have warm memories of going down to the basement and seeing rows of jars filled with canned fruits and tomatoes.
Good for Grandma for tasting those peaches! Nothing better and the smell reminds me so much of my Grandma!
Ripe, fresh peaches–with juice that drips down when chin when I eat them–are one of my favorite foods.
It was many years later before it was referred to as “laundry”. My mom always did the “wash” on Monday, too!
I never thought about it until you mentioned it, but you’re right, we used to do the “wash” . .it’s interesting how terminology changes across the years.
Very true. Most likely back then it was something taught when you were young!
I agree. . .children helped with the cooking back then and learned a lot in the process.
I can peaches and apricots plus make plum jam. I have used a similar recipe, but NEVER added water.
YUM!
mmm. . they sound delicious. I’ve never made plum jam; maybe I’ll have to give it a try sometime.
No kidding, Sheryl. I notice in my grandmother’s cookbook so much “assumed” knowledge. Just how hot is a “hot” oven? YIkes.
I guess that one generation just passed their knowledge of cooking on to the next back then–but the lack of written directions makes it seem like there must have been lots of cooking disasters.
We’re canning apples today…yum! Wish we still had peaches. 🙂
My husband and I canned apples several weeks ago. I always enjoy using them for pies and apple crisps in the winter.