I'm also awfully close to preserving your own fruit because you have to. There was never anything fun about it, it was all miserable and a chore. (Remember - nothing nice grows in Saskatchewan. Canned crabapples for dessert all winter? Yes. My aunt kept all the strawberries she grew for herself. We only got good stuff in the short period when my grandparents moved to the Okanagan and had an orchard).
And I *still* nearly came home from Utah[1] with a complete set of Mason jars and the great big boiler-y apparatus for preparing it. Fortunately, before incurring a load of FedEx fees I realised that I don't have access to that amount of free fruit to preserve. If I go pick blackberries I will barely come home with enough to make jam. I will never amass enough to need to can fruit.
I kind of love the idea of being that self-sufficient, but I have limited time and energy, and more to the point, space.
A while ago, the friends-of-the-family who live/lived in/near Tyvan, Sask, gave my parents a subscription to, er, Grain News. (IIRC Mum still has the decorative models of Weyburn Inland Terminal and yes this is entirely normal.) In that publication there was always an advert for a book which should have been called 'The merchant seafarer's guide to dealing with terrible things' because the picture of the cover featured a drawing of a Great Lakes freighter and a drawing an arm severed at the elbow with sticks and snotrags for a tourniquet.
That's the image that comes to mind whenever I start thinking about self-sufficiency.
[1] thought better of it, but the original was, that was the same trip where I was tempted to come home with a Korean-war era Army jeep, so my judgment may have been impaired.
I come from jam, as it were. I remember my great aunt buying seville oranges by the crate in season, and making pounds and pounds of it (some of which she would have in her toast for breakfast every day, and some would go to sales of work at the local church). My grandmother made it too, and would make me a little (sandwich paste, I suppose, or babyfood, perhaps) jar of jelly marmalade, the bits strained out because I wasn't keen, while granddad liked his bits big and bitter. My mum used to make it; she'll still do the occasional batch of jam, but I don't think she's done marmalade in years, and she's doing less and less now. When I was home at Christmas, I realised they have a cupboard full of probably sixty or so dusty jam jars; I don't suppose they'll ever be used (they buy most of their jam, and various other substances in jars, so there's no shortage), but I don't think they'd let me get rid of them and free up some cupboard space.
Living in a flat, I lack the attics and cupboards and basements and such for the storage of jam jars. There's still a space on top of the fridge for jars though. Some are full of dust, some are full of last year's brambles or the rather dubious chutney I made because the recipe sounded interesting (it isn't). Sevilles, you say. I'm sure I could clean the dust out of the necessary, wonder where near me will sell me some sevilles.
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And I *still* nearly came home from Utah[1] with a complete set of Mason jars and the great big boiler-y apparatus for preparing it. Fortunately, before incurring a load of FedEx fees I realised that I don't have access to that amount of free fruit to preserve. If I go pick blackberries I will barely come home with enough to make jam. I will never amass enough to need to can fruit.
I kind of love the idea of being that self-sufficient, but I have limited time and energy, and more to the point, space.
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Yes.
A while ago, the friends-of-the-family who live/lived in/near Tyvan, Sask, gave my parents a subscription to, er, Grain News. (IIRC Mum still has the decorative models of Weyburn Inland Terminal and yes this is entirely normal.) In that publication there was always an advert for a book which should have been called 'The merchant seafarer's guide to dealing with terrible things' because the picture of the cover featured a drawing of a Great Lakes freighter and a drawing an arm severed at the elbow with sticks and snotrags for a tourniquet.
That's the image that comes to mind whenever I start thinking about self-sufficiency.
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No, I'm sorry, but I really can't see what might be wrong with that. [/nothelping]
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My mum used to make it; she'll still do the occasional batch of jam, but I don't think she's done marmalade in years, and she's doing less and less now. When I was home at Christmas, I realised they have a cupboard full of probably sixty or so dusty jam jars; I don't suppose they'll ever be used (they buy most of their jam, and various other substances in jars, so there's no shortage), but I don't think they'd let me get rid of them and free up some cupboard space.
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Mind, I guess that 'Decadent' could mean 'Filled with random stuff that's probably bad for you so the suppliers have an easy time of it'.
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