When my grandparents were young there was no electricity to cool or cook. There were no refrigeratored train cars or trucks to bring produce or staples to the midland. These folks knew if they weren't going to starve in December or January, they better preserve every bit of food they could get their hands on.
They picked wild strawberries, plums and berries. The even used windfall apples, peaches and pears. They picked them from the ground and from the tree. They made them into sauce, butter and pies and cobblers if they couldn't get them saved or preserved.
They buried whole fruits, carrots, potatoes, turnips underground so they wouldn't freeze or they would lay them by in a root celler if they were fortunate to have one.
Meat was harder to preserve. You could salt down fish or beef. You could dry deer or pork and beef. You could wait until it was cold enough to hang the carcass and let it freeze but would be in trouble if there was a warm spell.
By my great-grandparents time there were methods and equipment available to can meat, beans, tomatoes and fruit if you had the food stuffs or the means to buy them. Living was more complicated in the old days. Old folks worked at farming, gardening and such as long as they were physically able because that was their way of life . . . and the means to their survival.
Now in garden and harvest time my survival instincts kick in. Innate behaviors urge me to grow, reap, pick and scavage. I want to can and freeze and make jelly and pickles. I pick the neighbor's wild plums. I harvest rhubarb, I freeze the leftover sweet corn so it won't go to waste and know it will taste good come winter.
My survival does not, of course, depend on me canning, freezing or drying food products but I am happy that I do these things and I am rewarded and gratified when I see the jars and bottles stacking up on the shelf. And I breathe easier about the approaching winter.
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