Member-only story
We Were Canning Before It Was Cool
The canning dance — a celebration of preservation
Picking and processing 400 pounds of tomatoes is not a feat for the faint of heart. I learned the art of canning 14 years ago, the summer after giving birth to my daughter, Sophie.
I was over at my mom and dad’s acreage every day back then. My friends, who didn’t have children of their own yet, didn’t want to spend time with a three and one-year-old who had a penchant for pooping their pants.
Understandable.
Grandma didn’t care about all that though; she had to love us no matter what.
The summer I learned the canning dance was the same summer Mom and I decided we would go all in with tomatoes. We planted row upon row of toms (from seed!), and lo and behold, they all sprouted.
Then, they all grew.
Then, they all grew bigger and started flowering.
By August’s end, we owned an endless sea of plants with various sizes of green globes hanging off them.
At this time, canning was still an old-school endeavour. Celebrities weren’t talking about its benefits, and as far as I could tell, there weren’t many blog posts going viral regarding the art of food preservation.
