Domesticity: Canning

I'm a huge fan of this Domestic Revival or Rural revival, whatever you want to call it, the sudden interest in the art of domesticity. Cooking, baking, sewing, crafting, etc. It's suddenly "cool" to be a little bit more domestic. Lately I've been going through domestic-inspired stages, where I am obsessed with one thing for a short period of time. About a month ago it was vacuuming. The past couple of weeks it's been bread baking. Now? Canning.

I come from very industrious families with farm backgrounds, so it's no surprise that both of my grandmother's canned their own produce. I loved to go deep into their basements where they stored their home-grown treasurers in jars of all colors. Tomatoes, beets, strawberries, cherries, peaches, pickles, corn, apples, it was all there. And it was decadent. I can only recall my mom canning produce a couple of times when I was growing up, when we'd had a very successful tomato crop or being roped into by her sisters. I would be delighted at Christmas when we would get a jar or two of my aunt's dill pickles or jam, knowing it was sure to be a treat. So, in the past three weeks I've come down with canning fever (these things just can't be ignored, you know?). Recently, I opened my Google Reader to find a posts on the posh jams, as well as logging into facebook and seeing a friend proudly displaying her home-grown produce and canning party, and opening one of my favorite magazines and saw an entire article on canning and making jams.


This past weekend, I was able to squeeze in some time to can some stewed tomatoes with my mom. And the weekend before we made an excellent Jalapeno Jam. Sounds blissful, doesn't it? Like a couple of perfect summer weekends.