Putting up 'Maters

My parents’ garden is slow going this year except for the cucumbers. The cucumbers have been bearing more than my parents can bear! They have made liberty pickles and are in some point in the multi-step process of making more. They have made more than one batch of bread and butter pickles and Mom wants to make at least one batch of dill pickles next. So the cucumbers are alive and well but their beans and tomatoes are slow on the uptake.

Since their tomatoes are not yet bearing, yesterday, they bought a bushel of tomatoes to can until their tomatoes decide to get with the program. I went there today to help them and as usual, I could not help but think about how many of our ancestors depended upon the produce from their gardens for survival.

Although our ancestors canned in big washtubs full of jarred produce over wood-burning fires for hours, we were able to do the same in a much shorter time by using a pressure cooker. I have seen things as simple as a washtub listed in family wills. If a pressure cooker had been available back in the day, the recipient in a will would have likely been jealously regarded the “favorite” child!

So today I helped my parents to process two cannings, or fourteen quarts, of tomatoes. There is probably another batch left to can but they will can those Monday. They don’t like to work on Sundays and I reckon that tomatoes that could still stand to ripen a bit are not oxen in a ditch.

So Mom and Dad brought out a canning book older than I am. Mom said that she doesn’t remember a time when they hadn’t canned and the book they used had probably come with their first pressure cooker, bought soon after they first got married in December of 1957. The book is falling apart and they keep it in a zip lock bag to keep the pages all together. 

After consulting the canning directions, Mom rinsed off the tomatoes and we formed a kind of assembly line with each of us multi-tasking moving from one step to another as needed.

After rinsing the tomatoes, we placed a few at a time into a boiling water bath for about a minute or so. This helps to loosen the skin so that they are very easy to peel. 

After we remove them from the boiling water bath, we place them into an ice-water bath. I don’t think that this really loosens the peel any more but hot tomatoes are no easier to handle than hot potatoes. The ice water bath makes them cool enough to handle to peel. 

After they are peeled, we roughly cut them into quarters and put them into clean jars. We pushed them down into the jars as we filled them to about an inch from the top.

Mom put a teaspoon of all-natural canning and pickling salt on top of the tomatoes in each jar. 

We then ran a flatware knife around the jar to further pack it and this also distributes the salt a bit.

 

After wiping around the rim of the jar with a clean cloth, the sterilized discs were placed on top, followed by the rims, which were hand tightened. 

The jars were placed in the pressure cooker so that they did not touch. Water was added and the tomatoes were pressure processed for ten minutes at five pounds of pressure as instructed by the canning book they have used for decades.

When it was safe to open the pressure cooker, the jars were removed and placed upon towels on the counter to cool. 

Then we went into the den to relax and visit. Periodically we would hear music to our ears, the beautiful pop of a jar sealing. 

Side note:

Many folks insist that in order to be canned safely, a bit of lemon juice must be added to the jar of tomatoes also. My folks have canned tomatoes for decades successfully without using lemon juice and without harming anyone who ate them. A bit of lemon juice probably doesn’t change the taste much so it couldn’t hurt if you would like to be cautious.

I have seen several Facebook posts indicating that the new Ball canning discs in the green box are not supposed to be boiled prior to using. I looked all over the lid box and could find no such caution. I also looked for instructions in the box and found none.

Mom had placed her discs in a skillet of water and had boiled them even though we used new “Sure Tight” discs. We canned fourteen quarts of tomatoes and each of them sealed.

I have also heard that these discs do not “pop” and you have to push the button down in order for the jar to seal. All of the jars blessed us with that reassuring pop without any outside help. I can only speak as to our experience with the SureTight discs. We used them just as we had always used the older version and in our case, they worked, just as the older version, and we experienced 100% success.