Whenever I engage in domesticities such as canning, I refer to my bible, The Encyclopedia of Country Living. As I’ve noted in this blog, most recently when I canned apricots, I love its author, Carla Emery. And sometimes, love means you can tell someone to go jump in a lake.
I’m not someone who particularly enjoys process. So, just like e.e. cummings talked about the joy of “having written,” when I talk about the joy of canning peaches I am talking about the joy of having canned peaches. The act itself involves anxiety, minor burns, and swearing. I work really hard not to cut myself.
I put in an order with a local farmer for peaches a month or so ago, and they were finally ready on Thursday. I picked up my lug, and yesterday loaded my dishwasher with jars and set everything up: vat of boiling water, cutting board, steam canner. I consulted The Encyclopedia of Country Living, which had Carla’s instructions as well as my notes from past years about how many jars I’d used.
Canning prep
Carla wrote: “If you’re slow you can drop the fruit into water containing 2 T. each salt and vinegar per gallon water to prevent darkening. But I just work fast.” I filled another vat with water.
I was careful to buy freestone peaches so I wouldn’t have to deal with the stones sticking into the fruit. However, the peaches were just slightly underripe. Unlike Carla, who was a full-time back-to-the-land homemaker and could can her peaches at the exact right time, I have a schedule, and that schedule allowed me to can on Saturday. Not Wednesday, when the peaches would have been ready. By next week, they’d be too far gone. Now or never.
The result was that only a few of them separated the way they were supposed to. Mostly, I had to cut around the stone, which had stuck in one of the two halves, and then dig it out with a spoon. Even though I doused the peaches in boiling water, the skins only sort-of peeled off. Mostly I had to peel them with a paring knife. This was fussy.
“I just work fast,” Carla said. Go jump in a lake, Carla.
It was a good thing I had prepared the vinegar-salt water.
But, as with any problem, if you keep working at it you’ll eventually lick it. And I did. And my February-self will thank me!
See, that wasn’t so bad! Now, go ice those burns
getyourpitchforkon 
Oh yeah. I’ve been canning like a mad woman lately, and like you, I’ve not been one to savor the process. But I’m working on that part, and the results are always satisfying!
Oh, I’m so glad you said you like *having canned peaches* not necessarily the canning process. That’s my experience with most all things garden/yard. I find tending plants rather bewildering and overwhelming. I’ll now try to do better thinking of the future bounty during the months when weeds, slugs, random leaf curls and bugs cause me anxiety!
I bet there are lots of us!
[…] summer, when my colleague Sara asked if I wanted any apricots. I documented canning them as well as some peaches that I bought. When we had windfall apples in our yard, I made applesauce. A friend who was going on […]