Gregory Morrow wrote:
>
> Blinky the Shark wrote:
>
>> Becca wrote:
>>
>> > Blinky the Shark wrote:
>> >
>> >> I would think that the further we get from the The Great Depression,
> the
>> >> lower the home-canner numbers will be. Other influences: freezers and
>> >> refrigerators becoming commonplace in the first world, improvements in
>> >> transportation and distribution, etc.
>> >
>> > Okra, green beans, corn and peas will go in the freezer, but some foods
>> > are better canned. Fresh, blackberry jelly, grandma's corn relish,
>> > chow-chow, pickles. These are better canned.
>>
>> Yeah, I wasn't thinking about jam and pickles. I was thinking about
>> survival canning.
>
> Which is what my parents and many others did on the farm during the
> Depression (folks married in '34). Summer was canning time, autumn was
> hog - butchering time...the root cellar was full of things. Many quarts of
> meat would be canned (beef...). Many did not have electricity 'til '40 or
> so when the REA came in...putting stuff by was a necessity.

I know what you're talking about, but you just reminded me of another bit
of history. Do you remember the REA that was the Railway Express Agency?
Kind of an early UPS that the railroads created to deliver
rails-transported packages to the business or home?

> I remember the root cellar when I was little kid in the late '50's but
> by then it was barely used. The big black iron cauldron used for hog
> butchering was by then used as a flower planter. I remember my folks
> killing chickens, but by c. '61 or so that was a thing of the past...our
> income was going up and we didn't have to kill our own fowl.

I lived in a small town (barely: three or four blocks from the city
limits), but we had a "fruit cellar" for back stock on supermarket stuff
and the canning my grandmother (who lived with us) and mother would do.
It was originally our coal bin -- a room off the (very unfinished)
basement with a door and with a window at ground level next to the
driveway, that the coal truck stuck its chute into. After we got oil
heat, that got cleaned out and became food storage.

> My dad became fairly prosperous during the war from farming (even bought
> mom a fur coat!), when production controls were lifted after the war the
> first thing they bought was a big deep freeze, at the time they were
> expensive enough to be a real luxury item...having a deep freeze c. 1947
> meant that you had "arrived", it was almost as prestigious as having a
> new car (new cars were in short supply 'til 49 or so IIRC) It was the
> International Harvester brand IIRC...

I didn't know they made appliances.

> During the Truman years of the late 40's there were some lobbyist -type
> scandals, I don't remember the exact details, but among the "gifts"
> given to grease the corruption were fur coats, jewelry - and deep
> freezes...!!!

Heh!

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