Thursday, August 4, 2011

My Grandmother's Canning Books

Since my rant yesterday regarding the poor quality of canning lids and bands today. I started rummaging through the box of old canning supplies that I have from my grandfather's house. I found 44 never used zinc/porcelain caps and boxes of unused rubber rings.

Then I decided that I would share some pictures of my grandmother's canning books. "The Italian" and I get such a kick out of them. I'm sure that you will too!

Click on the pictures to enlarge & read

This is the oldest book that I have © 1932

How about that statement ladies?

The next book is our favorite. The copyright is 1944 which is evident in it's contents.

Do you believe....10 cents!



The Victory Garden




How cool is all of that??? I hope that you all enjoyed this little bit of canning nostalgia!

24 comments:

  1. Those are really fun to read! Thanks for sharing.

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  2. Very cool! And here's one more thought that I know applies to so many of your readers during the canning season. "She rises while it is yet night and provides food for her household" (Proverbs 31:15).

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  3. What a very neat find for you! I have some of my Grandmother's recipes and booklets tucked away. Time to take a look at them and enjoy the wonderful memories from times past.

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  4. Funny how gardening used to be a patriotic thing to do. Now the government want to take away as many rights as it can in growing your own. But those books are really neat. Oh food was so simple then.

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  5. Hey , I'm a real live grandma from those days , I have a couple of those books ( and jars) myself..Darn, I must be older than Annie's Granny :o)

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  6. Emily, I'm glad you enjoyed reading them!

    Jody, That definitely applies to a lot of us out here in real food world!

    2 Tramps, We really enjoy reading the old canning and cookbooks. They have good recipes too!

    Jane, Don't you be getting me all fired up now....I've got canning and drying to do today! The nerve of the Whitehouse to plant an organic garden and then pass these bills!!

    Ginny, I didn't know that anyone was older then Granny :)

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  7. Thanks for sharing. I have a soft spot my husband calls an addiction to old cook books. A lot of people do not see the point of canning anymore with everything you can buy for so little. I think they are stupid..lol

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  8. I was looking through my Ball Blue Book the other day. You know a modern one. And I was annoyed that it wasn't blue. How can a blue book not be blue? Your old one is.

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  9. Mrs.P, My husband has an addiction to cookbooks in general. We have an entire 7' bookshelf devoted to just cookbooks and there's not enough room on it!

    Daphne, My latest Ball Blue Book is from the 90's and it's blue. I don't have a real recent one. Although I do have a couple from the 70's or 80's that aren't blue. I think they should all be blue too!

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  10. What a super neat blast from the past post! I too have an addiction for old books, with an emphasis on cooking, housekeeping, and etiquette books. They are fascinating.

    I was just ranting yesterday about how at one point when the country went to war we citizens were expected to help and to conserve and sacrifice. Nowadays we are a war and it doesn't really change the daily life for most people. It seems like that is very, very wrong. It started when I learned that this growing Meatless Monday movement actually started because of WW I. Why don't they ask us to help create national security in the garden any more?!

    I'm sorry...and you even said not to get you fired up....

    Thanks for sharing your photos. I now need to go check and see if my blue book is really blue.

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  11. Love the old "home-ec" type books. So interesting. They really had to work at doing these things, yet it all seemed so nice and simple back then. I'd love to time-travel back to the 30's and 40's, just to see what it was like.

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  12. BLD, I agree with you 100%! Don't worry about getting me all fired up....I manage to do that on my own about all of this stuff!

    Sue, I think that the old books like that are so so cool! "The Italian" and I are always saying that we would love to go to that period in time to see what it was like.

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  13. I'd like you to know I was in grade school when Ginny got married! She's older than dirt, ya know. ;-)

    I was looking through some old cookbooks the other day, from back in the 30s and 40s. I should have taken some scans from them, but instead I gave them to my oldest daughter. They are fun to read, but there weren't a lot of recipes that sounded really good. The menus were a real kick to read....they ate a LOT of food at a meal back then! I suppose most of the men were hard working farmers, and needed a lot of food.

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  14. Granny, I had to humor her a bit :) They certainly did eat a lot back then! Hard working farmers do eat a lot. I remember sitting at the table when I was young and I would count how many pancakes my grandfather would eat. It was amazing and he was thin!

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  15. They are priceless treasures! How lucky you are to have such wonderful things! Oh if only we held to more of those ideals again. And in such a short time things really did change. I don't think the water is even finished swirling in the toliet bowl :(

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  16. What an awesome find! Great hand me down!!

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  17. APGal, You've got that right!! Our society would be in much better shape if half the people had the values and morals of that time!

    Holly, Reading those books is like going back in time!

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  18. Definitely hang on to those... they are a real snap shot in time. The whole point of my blog and website is to try and create a new (modern) focus on the traditional concept of the victory garden... doing our part to care for ourselves and our families and in doing so lessening our impact on the world resources while providing higher quality nutrition for our own family.

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  19. Laura, I thought that you would appreciate the Victory Garden pages. I'm the keeper of all old family memories in my family.

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  20. How fantastic that you have those heirlooms to cherish and to pass it down to the next generation of canners! Love it!

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  21. You uncovered treasures! I know you will cherish them.

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  22. Amazing find! I'd put that stuff in a shadowbox on the wall!

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  23. Jody, I just saw what you wrote, amazing passage, love it!

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  24. Mimi, I'm sure that my son will treasure them and be the next canner in the family.

    rmgales, We just love all of my grandmother's cookbooks.

    Erin, I keep these with my grandmother's hand written cookbook in a plastic bag on the cookbook book shelf. There are some good recipes in the old canning books!

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