1940 – Part of the canned goods and home grown vegetables in the new storage house of Mr. And Mrs. William S. Allen. Southern Appalachian Project near Barbourville, Knox County, Kentucky.
Look at all that goodness in the photo! My eye is drawn to all the tasty things they’ve put up for winter eating: cushaws, sweet taters, apples, arsh taters, candy roasters, and canned vegetables. I can just imagine going to the area to pick out what I want to cook for supper.
I love the different size jars and the ones that seem more squared than round. I have a few old ones like that.
My preserving area isn’t near that nice but I have been busy putting up the goodness of summer so that we can enjoy it this winter.
Last week we tested out a jar of the kraut we made and my it is good! We stood around and sampled it straight out of the jar and then ate the rest with supper.
Over the weekend The Deer Hunter made some hot tomato pickles. I dried apples and canned tomato juice for the first time ever.
I’ve put up a few runs of tomatoes this summer, but had about 20 or so that I needed to do something with.
A couple of years ago a dear sweet lady sent me a steam juicer. It works wonderfully for extracting juice from fruit to make jelly or to drink. I decided to see how it worked on the tomatoes.
I only ended up with a few jars, but we all agreed it was very tasty and will look forward to drinking it this winter. The steamer took out all of the tomato bits, leaving a sort of red tinged liquid.
Last summer I barely got to put up anything so I’ve been pleased to restock our pantry shelves this summer. The dry weather has left us short on green beans and winter squash, but I’m thankful for the bounty found elsewhere in the garden this year.
put up verb phrase To put away, store.
1969 DARE FW Addit (KY) = to store, put away, or put in storage as in a closet; (CwNC) put it up = put it away.
[DARE put up v phr 1 chiefly South, South Midland]
—Dictionary of Southern Appalachian English
I’m glad the dictionary included the phrase put up, but it’s hard for me to fathom the shortness of the entry since putting up is something I’ve taken part in from the time I helped Granny as a girl. Not to mention the fact that the entry really doesn’t address the process of preserving food directly.
Last night’s video: Late Summer Harvesting & Delicious Bread.
Tipper
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Tipper,
Have you ever put up Tomato Jam with lemon and cinnamon? It is delicious especially on grilled chicken. Let me know if you would like the recipe. We are enjoying the videos and watching your family grow.
Drama-I’ve never had that but it sounds good!
I don’t have a vegetable garden at my own but I do put out some things from the Farmers Market that I especially love. I freeze corn and green beans for winter soups and I make strawberry jam and tomato jam.
Great for gifts & I just love opening up a jar on a cold February morning and having a taste of summer.
My sister and I learned to can by helping our mother every summer. She had Dad convert an old wash house shed into a summer kitchen for her canning, complete with a fridge, a stove, and a sink. We spent many evenings out there with her finishing up the summer canning. I’m working on my tomato juice and spaghetti sauce this week in the evenings after work, myself. It’s a lot of work, but the taste is so worth it!
I remember one summer, my mother “put up” a hundred quarts of green beans. My job that summer was to assist my dad in a large garden he planted in our neighborhood…. quarter of an acre of land….I grew to hate standing on my head and pick those bush beans! My parents were so proud of all those jars, tucked away in the basement under the stairs.
I love the post today and I’m especially fond of the picture. I was born and raised in Middlesboro, Bell County, Kentucky about a thirty minute drive from where this picture is taken. We’ve lived here in Knox County, Kentucky for almost twenty-eight years now. First in Gray and now in Corbin about a fifteen minute drive from Barbourville. Nature’s bounty is a tremendous blessing! 🙂
Barbara”s comment about West Virginia half runner beans makes me homesick for those mountains, I grew up there on a farm, my mother was not happy until there were 100 cans of half-runners on the shelves in the cellar. Well I remember picking and stringing and breaking beans, then canning them in her 18 quart big canner. After I moved here to California had seed beans sent but they did not grow well at all, I really miss them, they are the best!!! Mother has been gone many years, but her old canner is still with me.
I have never seen a larder (new word for me, learned from Ruth Ann Zimmerman on Homesteading with the Zimmermans) like this before YT in the last few years. Like many have already commented, I too admire people who have done all that to put back for the coming months and years! I have family who canned from their garden. I remember them talking about puttin up things but don’t remember seeing anything like this with my own eyes except about 10 years ago I saw where my aunt had a couple of shelves up high in her laundry room with jars and jars of tomatoes when she got out two of them to give me to take home and asked me to bring her jars back to her, which I did. Being given those home canned tomatoes was a special treat. I have cut off my very first cushaw on Saturday, I kinda feel like a won a big prize to cut that off the vine, it really is the star of my pitiful little first garden effort in about 20 years. It’s not as big as those in the picture, it had two little holes in it when I checked it on Saturday, whatever it was I think had exited so I thought I better go ahead and get it. I heard Tipper say in her Live video today that they are still edible even though they may not be as mature as they could be. I babied that one and the three other ones that are coming along. Something already took one of those little ones so I have two more chances to grow one to maturity this year. I look forward to trying to save them for later on into fall and winter. Aside from some dried homegrown herbs, then apples to dry or maybe freeze, and a few peaches (frozen), the cushaws will likely be all I get put up this year for us. I enjoyed reading everyone’s comments here.
Tipper I could sit and look at that photo for hours and just dream of having all that put up in a pantry….LOL well just having a pantry to put it in would be a dream come true for me.
I have put up grape jelly, pickled peppers and lots of tomatoes. We always share the purchase of part of a beef each year with our son and my hubby deer hunts. So we will be putting up meat in our freezer too. It’s a great feeling to have some food for the winter.
We’re heading over to Ellijay to pick up apples for making applesauce and dehydrated chips. We always wait until the Labor Day tourists have left before making the “apple run”. Fewer crowds and less traffic is how we roll.
That’s a great photo and only part of what they put up. What a harvest! Must be such a comfort to know your family will be fed over the winter.
I’m going to try Deerhunter’s bread. It sounds delicious! You and Matt are so cute together and after meeting you both at Alexander’s, y’all were as nice as I knew you would be❣️
This picture looks a lot like my parent’s storage room while I was growing up. Alongside the canning room was a huge chest freezer which my mother filled every year with meats, corn and other garden produce. There was another small room in this utility room, and it held apples, cushaws, and other fruits vegetables. There were seven members of our family to feed, and we never went hungry. I miss those years of working in the garden and harvesting the produce and helping mom put up the bounty. My husband and I have a garden every year, but we don’t raise enough vegetables to put up. We both have rheumatoid arthritis and now that we are old (75 and 76), he is having a hard time using the rototiller so we may just plant a few tomato plants next year. My mother-in-law used to raise a small garden. She raised peas, lima beans, tomatoes and maybe one or two other vegetables. She made the best tomato soup where she ground up the vegetables and used could use it to eat like soup or add to other foods. She has been gone for almost eight years now. Rita is right when she says we all would be wise to put back some food in case the food chain is interrupted especially with times being so unsure. Tipper, I really enjoy watching you and Matt plant, harvest and put up your garden stuff. It’s so gratifying to see younger people planting and harvesting. Hardly anyone around here in southern Virginia plants a garden anymore and there aren’t many places selling fruits or vegetables either.
I put by food for winter every year. Learned from my Mama and Aunt. I do greenbeans, carrots, tomatoes, cranberry juice, jellies, applesauce, peaches and anything else that comes along. Our green beans havent done great. They have lots of flowers but havent make beans. I have read that it is because we had such high temps . That is unusual for us. My friend visit West Virginia and brought be a bushel of half runners. They were beautiful . I canned them but need a few more on the shelf.
That picture would look well on the wall in the kitchen or dining room, or make a jigsaw puzzle?. (I think those are two rooms largely forgotten when it comes to decor but there are lots of possibilities.) I noted in comments so far several words and turns of phrase that are so ‘homey’ to me like “put up”, ” a run of”, “put back”, ” rat killin” (doesn’t everybody say that?) and “perdy”. (What’s the difference between “put up” and “laid up”? I seem to remember that coming up here on BP&A in the past?)
The last time I tried to write “rat killin” it wouldn’t let me post it. Remember Jerry Clower telling about neighbors getting together and having rat killings at their corn cribs.
I recall that Randy. Gave my Dad tapes of Jerry there for a few years and he loved’em. He needed something to laugh about. I best not get started on the word police. I need a T shirt that reads “I speak Southern Appalachian”.
How beautiful! Just think how blessed they were for the entire year. So much hard work but so rewarding. Reminds me of my grandparents cellar.
This reminds me of my Mother and Grandmother canning, preserving, freezing any and everything that could be used for food when I was growing up in the 50 and 60’s. My Mother and Father in law did this until my Father in law died in 2013. It has been said before by me and others very little food was bought in a store. For my family buying a hot dog was a special occasion.
Matt’s hot tomato pickles, I read a story by Gene Hill where he had wrote if you and several generations of your family have not been raised in the south, do not touch that mason jar of small green tomatoes and peppers, eating one is no worse than getting kicked in the mouth by a mule but no better either, they will put a blister on a work glove.
It must be really exciting to “shop” from a food store such as the Allen’s had in 1940! What an accomplishment! Back then, families were usually a bit larger than the average family is now. As you have mentioned many times, growing and preserving was what kept the family alive!
I applaud anyone who continues this practice today, because it is just as important now as it was then. We never know when our food supply chain could be interrupted. We would all be wise to put food back, whether grown ourselves or purchased. We can be thankful in all situations for the Lord’s bounty.
the hot tomato pickles peaked my interest so I will have to go down that rabbit hole to learn more about what they are…I take for granted everyone knows what I mean when I say something like ‘puttin up’ but more than once have I been looked at with confusion when I tell someone ‘I will let you get back to your rat killin’ lol (I wonder if that phrase came to be back in the day when those rats came up the river destroying everything in their paths–here in Oklahoma I never heard of there being that rat problem but in western Oklahoma they did have a jack rabbit issue where much the same thing happened and people were shooting and clubbing them to death due to the over run of them) I read yesterday that April’s water had broke and to pray for her–I guess I forgot or missed the news about her being pregnant—hope she and baby are still doing ok…what a neat thing for the three girls to have children so close together (praying her and baby continue to be ok) prayers for entire family looking forward to this mornings live with you–but remember not to pressure yourself every single Monday to do a live just because of your viewers
Gaylia-thank you! April is okay they are monitoring her but for now everything is good.
Beautiful picture! At one time years and years ago we rented an old farmhouse and our gathering space looked something like that. I loved just looking at the things canned.. I’ve missed it ever since. Our space is in the garage now and while it’s still perdy it’s not the same.
I only got to put up one run of beans this year. Thankfully I had enough from last year that will carry us over.
Our sweet tater squash (I believe you all call it Candy Roasters) done well this year, but I only got one kushaw and a few punkins.
I did put up a run of vegetable soup and I will be canning tomato soup today. We have tomatoes out our ears. I am not complaining about that!
I love all the wonderful things y’all share. It inspires me. I work about 50 hours a week outside the home and I am still able to tend a large garden at this point. I praise the Lord for blessing us with the bounty each year. He is a good good Father.
Been missing you and your posts…lots of Doctoring stuff. I do however read every blog and video…Hugs and prayers for all you guys and so proud of Granny…she is one tough cookie.