Bess Swedenburg laughingly admits she has friends who think she’s “crazy.” At times, she may even wonder herself. But not long enough to stop the canning juggernaut going on in her Mayhew kitchen. Swedenburg is on track to hit the 700 mark very soon, and husband Billy is busy planning new storage cabinets for more jars of her peach, fig and pear preserves, canned tomatoes, salsa, chili sauce, tomato juice and green beans. For pears, pickled green tomatoes, okra and squash, watermelon rind pickles, large cucumber pickles, dilly veggies and a variety of jellies. She’s also put up blackeyed purple hull peas, corn on the cob, cream style corn, peppers, eggplant, peaches and blueberries.
“It’s been a busy summer at our house!” Bess chuckles. It may be the understatement of the year.
Swedenburg enjoys giving away these home-canned goodies to family and friends when the holidays roll around. “I get to do this in the summertime and then I don’t have to worry about Christmas,” she says. Supplies of festive gift sacks, boxes and trimmings were purchased on sale after Christmas 2013. Near the first of December, Bess and Billy’s playroom will be covered with them, along with cases of the canned fruits (and vegetables) of her labor.
In a way, these hundreds of jars represent a cooperative. About half of the home-grown produce comes to Swedenburg from neighbors and friends.
“I love that they share with me,” she remarks. “Whatever they give me is what I work with. I never turn anybody down, no matter what else I’ve got going on.”
There are the six 5-gallon buckets of green tomatoes from Nick Hairston, scuppernongs and muscadines offered by Vicky Bourland, 5-gallon buckets of red tomatoes from Bill and Windy Swedenburg, fruit from John Prince, watermelon and jalapeno peppers from Ray and Amy Kilpatrick, bell peppers from Margaret and Buford Sharp and peaches and corn from friends in Tennessee, to name some.
Most of the rest is grown in the Swedenburg’s own garden — green beans, squash, peppers, eggplants, cucumbers. “One of my favorite recipes it to take the great big cucumbers that kind of hide under the leaves and get as big as a tennis shoe, and pickle the part between the peeling and the seeds; it makes a real sweet crisp pickle. My children love that.”
Write it down
Swedenburg has been canning for years, but this is the first season she’s kept a journal. The entry for Aug. 16 records a red letter event. Working with Hairston’s green tomatoes, combining them with assorted vegetables, the canning whiz put up 36 quarts and 48 pints. It’s the most she’s ever canned in one day.
“I was exhausted when it was over,” she says, with mirth. “My husband told me I really did snore a lot that night.”
The entire undertaking requires commitment and a certain mind set — and dishpans, lots of dishpans. Three refrigerators help a lot, too. It’s work, yes, but deeply satisfying for Bess.
“When you cook a meal, everybody eats it and it’s gone. When you clean a house, a day later it needs cleaning again. But when you can something, it’s a little more lasting,” she says, mentioning a friend who once told her the very first thing she does with a home-canned gift is set it out and enjoy looking at it.
Produce is still coming in and Swedenburg is still canning, not wanting any of the harvest to go to waste. Each jar is a colorful reminder of a season’s bounty, a gift made with care and passed on with love.
Oh, and … Merry Christmas.
GRANDMA SWEDENBURG’S SQUASH PICKLE
8 cups sliced squash
2 cups sliced onions
3 bell peppers sliced
3 cups sugar
2 cups vinegar
2 teaspoon mustard seed
2 teaspoon celery seed
1 teaspoon turmeric, optional
(Source: Marguerite Swedenburg)
AUNT TOUIE’S WATERMELON RIND PICKLES
3 quarts (about 6 pounds) watermelon rind, unpared
3/4 cup canning salt
3 quarts water
2 quarts ice cubes
9 cups sugar
3 cups white vinegar
3 cups water
1 tablespoon whole cloves
6 cinnamon sticks broken
(Source: Mary Virginia Stover)
DILLY VEGGIES
Banana peppers
Hot peppers
Baby carrots
Green tomatoes (quartered)
Okra
Onions sliced lengthwise
Broccoli
(Source: Bess Swedenburg, created from several different recipes.)
Jan Swoope is the Lifestyles Editor for The Commercial Dispatch.
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