Putting Up Peaches

Sam remembers his grandmother's kitchen

Last Friday afternoon Sam came home from the Whistlestop Market with a bag of peaches and a paper pint basket of blackberries. Saturday morning he announced he was taking a vacation from computer and phone, took the stepladder into the pantry, got down the big shiny canning pot from the top shelf, and put lots of water on to boil. It’s summertime! Time to put up peaches.

First you run the Mason jars and two-part lids through the dishwasher. Later you’ll sterilize them in the big pot of boiling water, but for now set them to drain on a clean towel. Sam rinsed the peaches. If you boil them in a smaller pot for a few minutes, it’s easy to peel the skins. He peeled, pitted and sliced the peaches, and heated the slices with some sugar syrup.

Wash jars and lids; boil peaches; peel and pit them; slice them; heat the slices.

It was about this time that Sam told me a story about his grandmother Lucy Anders. Her daughter, Sam’s mother Madge, had dropped in to visit around 8:30 one morning and found Lucy with 24 quarts of freshly canned garden tomatoes on the table. Her wood stove was still warm. Madge was astonished that Lucy, who was 92, had done so much so early. “I had to get started early,” said her mother, “before the day got too hot.”

But to return to our kitchen. So then you fill the clean jars with cooked peaches, within half an inch of the tops. You wipe the rims with a clean towel. “This is where you have to be very disciplined,” Sam said.

Then you screw on the lids and tighten them, but not too much. With tongs Sam lowered the jars into the boiling water bath, sides not touching. He set the timer for 35 minutes. “I don’t know why the sides can’t touch,” he told me, “but it’s not my job to question that.”

Fill jars. Wipe rims. Put lids on and lift into boiling pot. Boil 35 minutes.

About that wood stove. When Lucy Anders was in her 70’s in the 1950’s, her children bought her a new electric stove. But Lucy just stored her pots and pans in the new stove’s oven and kept cooking with her old wood stove. Sam and his cousin Larry remember how as boys their job was to cut, split and stack their grandmother’s stove wood.

So now Sam’s jars of peaches were ready to lift out of the pot. He set them on a fresh towel to drain. When you hear each metal lid pop you know they’re sealed and safe for pantry shelf storage after they’re cool.

In the photo at the bottom right below, you can see that one lid on our peaches didn’t seal properly, since the lid is still rounded. We’ll refrigerate this jar and eat the peaches on our cereal.

Lift jars out of pot and set on towel to cool. One lid did not seal properly, bottom right, so we’ll refrigerate the jar for this week’s breakfasts.

Then we put today’s date on each jar. I pitched in and wrote “8-14-21” on 13 pieces of masking tape with a Sharpie. I wondered how Sam’s grandmother labeled her tomatoes.

Lucy Matilda King was born in 1879 and grew up on Little River where Cascade Lake is now, only a dozen miles from where Sam and I live. I think about her, about how her example stuck with Sam, and about how this winter we, our children, grandchildren and friends will enjoy the peaches he canned this weekend.

Long live Lucy Matilda King Anders!