Canned adventures

For whatever reason my wife has done a lot of canning this year. Every weekend for the past three weeks, our kitchen has resembled a sauna. We've got chutney and green tomato relish and pears and apples and applesauce and tomatoes and peaches, and something called "picadilly" that looks kind of like road kill in a mason jar.

Olivia weighed in on all this canning.

"Something doesn't smell so good," she said when Sherry was making relish.

Olivia and her prim little nose were quickly ushered out into the backyard.

"Yeah," Olivia said. "But it's getting dark."

"Take a flashlight," we said.

(Olivia is also practicing the recorder. The recorder is a cross between a kazoo and a flute designed to increase a child's musical awareness and development for the low, low price of $3.50. We make her practice outside. Sure, we encourage child development, just as long as we don't have to listen to it.)

So, like I said, we've got a lot of canned goods. In fact, if they pulled the plug on the world tomorrow, we'd have enough to make it through to 2006, maybe even 2007, if we spread the chutney thin.

The chutney, for what it's worth, was my idea.

"Make some chutney," I said. "There's a bunch of recipes that call for it."

Actually, I can only think of one, but it sounded really good. I went to make it once and got about halfway through it when I saw it called for some chutney. It sort of ruined the day. Since then I've always wondered what chutney tastes like. I will soon find out. We have 15 jars of it, neatly labeled, in the back cupboard.

I don't mind all this canning. In fact, it brings up fond memories of my youth, so when I'm asked to make a run to the store to pick up lids or buy 25 pounds of sugar, I don't complain like I normally would.

My grandmother was the consummate canner. She started canning sometime in July, when the first cukes got ripe, and didn't finish until October, when the last of the tomatoes were done.

All of her canning, when it was done, went into the basement of her house. That might not sound like a big deal, but the house was built in the early 1800s. It had a stone foundation and a single light bulb, and there was a half-inch of water on the floor if it rained.

The ceiling was low, with lots of cobwebs.

The old door didn't open easy, and it closed even harder and, of course, there were snakes. Big, black garter snakes. Lots of them.

It was the sort of place that a boy would look at and say, "So, this is what prison is like."

I wasn't afraid of snakes, so I was often sent down in the basement to fetch whatever grandma needed. It was a trip down a poorly lit stairwell, tip-toeing across boards that were laid over the dank water, to the shelves of tomatoes and corn and cucumbers.

The snakes hid in onion baskets and would give you the bad eye or slither under a board to get away. You'd grab the tomatoes and sprint back up the stairs. Canning wasn't just a way of life, it was an adventure. You were happy just to make it back to the dinner table with your facilities intact.

But that canned corn? That canned corn made it worth every step.