Marilyn Lafantaisie photo
Former Winnipegger Marilyn Lafantaisie is serious about her canning and plans to preserve more than 600 jars of fruits and vegetables this year.
It’s harvest season. A very pretty time of year, but I don’t like where it’s leading if you catch my "drift."
So, do you have a cold room in your home to store all the carrots, potatoes, turnips, beets and other good stuff you need to keep you alive and healthy through the long cold winter?
Nope, neither do I. Hardly anyone does these days, because these days we can just go to the store and buy "fresh" veggies and fruit all winter long, at insane prices, rather than doing the canning and preserving ourselves.
I mean, who does canning and preserving these days anyway? Glad you asked. LOTS of people, it turns out. All you have to do is ask on Facebook and you find out who mighty quick.
Take Marilyn Lafantaisie for example, a former Winnipegger who moved to Calgary 10 years ago.
Marilyn was one of the first to respond. "I can peaches, apricots, tomatoes, garlic dill pickles, pickled beets, pickled carrots, relish, mustard pickles, bread and butter pickles, strawberry jam, saskatoon jam, apple butter, pear butter and many many more... garlic dill pickles and pickled dill carrots to start."
Darn, and she’s too far away to go and mooch from.
So, let’s cut to the chase. I ask her how many jars she regularly "cans" for winter.
"Uhhh let’s see," she ponders, "52 jars times 12... 604."
"OMG," I sputter.
Do you have a cold room? "Sure do," she replies, "a part of the basement that bumps out under the dining room. Designated just for preserves etc., walled off (door entry), no insulation, kept between 5 C and 15 C."
I have a vague memory of a cold room of sorts in the old fieldstone basement in our Killarney home (the whole basement was always cold), where by spring, the remaining potatoes were sprouting like crazy. Still, you’d pick out the best you could find, peel them, boil them and supper was on. Mashed and smothered in melted butter, so good.
Now, just when I’m admiring the quantity Marilyn puts up and thinking there can’t be many in her league (this isn’t 1948 on the farm) along comes Loretta Diane Elrod.
Laurie says she has caned 47 litres of green beans, 19 litres of garlic dills, 14 litres of Saskatoon pie filling, nearly four litres of strawberry jam, eight litres of pineapple in light syrup, 15 litres of mandarins, more than three litres of bread and butter pickles, nearly five litres of sweet pickled jalapenos, nearly three litres of sweet pickled veggies and 6½ quarts of sweet pickled beans. "And this is just the beginning," she says.
Just the beginning!
"Tomatoes aren’t in yet, nor potatoes, so there is salsa and diced tomatoes and pasta sauce and juice yet to come. Oh and corn, and I grow it all except, of course, the mandarins and pineapples. I will end up with about 500 jars of stuff and I will be doing dried beans later and soups."
Wow. No question Marilyn and Loretta are elite-class canners, at a level I’m kind of surprised to see from folks in this day and age. Bravo!
Of course, as always, there were a couple of cheeky submissions. From Elaine Sanness, an old, old friend from my CJOB radio days: "I made one jar of zucchini and cucumber refrigerator pickles. Does that count?"
No, I replied, and sent her to her room.
Then, of course, everybody’s a comedian and good for them. From my buddy Lee Gieni: "Why was the baby strawberry crying? His mom was in a jam."
Security! She’s now in solitary, doing one to five in her cold room.
Interesting stuff. The real gold in today’s column being... learning who to friend on Facebook! Brace yourselves ladies!
Comments, feedback or column ideas, love to hear from you!
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