Ball Home Canning

Adventures in canning: Bear and groundhog

It happens to every writer occasionally: Writer’s block, the dreadful malady when you are facing a deadline yet have no idea what it is about which you wish to write. Some days are so easy. You sit at your keyboard, steno pad or blank sheet of paper and almost as if by magic, words start to flow like water from a mountain spring. Then there are the days when you want it to come so badly but not a single valid idea comes to mind. You may start numerous times only to scrap the idea because it simply is not working. Amazingly, this was apparently all I needed to get things going. An idea came to mind and I ran with it. It worked out reasonably well. Late that afternoon, I was back on my FaceBook site and saw that three friends, Jimmy Frye, Marty Smith and Elizabeth Taylor-Crabtree, had all posted an idea. Both Jim (J.W. to his old buddies) and Marty suggested the same thing, a piece on storing your own food the old way, by home-canning. Liz suggested a piece on the Shaker Nation Reunion. Good ideas both but as it was a two-to-one vote, I decided to use the guys’ idea this week. This time of year is one of my favorites. Home gardens are now usually producing in full swing. As most folks who know me know, I love fresh vegetables out of local gardens. I like a wide variety of fresh vegetables. But without question or doubt my absolute favorite is the garden tomato. I like it fresh from the garden, even to the point where I just wipe it off on the leg of my jeans and bite into it. It is so wonderful, standing in the warm summer sun, tastebuds all in a frenzy with the wonderful taste of a sweet, ripe tomato, born in the limestone sweetened soil of Virginia’s Southern Highlands, juice dripping off one’s cheeks and chin.It is simply wonderful, as close to heaven as man can get without dying. But there are many other treats from the world of garden are at their peak this time of year. Things like fresh beans (green being my favorite with Limas are running a close second), or corn, either fresh or cut from the cob. There are summer squash, eggplant, broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, cucumbers, is a premium almost unbelievable. In my youth, it was not a problem. Families simply keeps the surplus, either at home or in large industrial-style canneries operated in general by the governments of the county. The home-type normally was done using the heavy glass jars, either Ball or Mason jars, although I do think there may have been another brand or maybe two, I simply don’t recall their names. The canning was normally a family affair. After gathering the vegetables from the garden, they were washed, cut into useable-size pieces, then cooked in a pressure canner (which while very effective in preserving vegetables or fruits could be somewhat dangerous and did occasionally explode). The metal lids consisted of three components, a heavy rubber seal, a metal center piece usually lined with thick glass and a ring in which the gasket and lid fit. This assembly was screwed onto the jar containing the freshly heated vegetables. As it cooled it would form a tight seal.  I remember Mom and various other women in the family doing the canning, always worrying that the canner would explode due to the pressure and injure one of us kids. But as far as I know that never happened. I think the canner, which was a large pressure cooker, had a safety valve that would pop if pressure became too high and had to be replaced. (This was a long time ago so I offer no guarantees on accuracy.) Later, the local counties constructed large canneries using equipment more in line with commercial production. Those families with much larger gardens or larger families with lots of ladies as was mine would go together and visit these canneries where they could use large scale equipment and actually put their vegetables and even meats such as sausage up in large cans. Some of my fondest memories of the “adventures in canning” come from my great-uncle Charles O. “Uncle Charlie” DeBusk, an old-style mountain man if one ever existed. My dad lived with him for many years, and we all thought of him as a grandfather. He treated us kids like grandchildren. My middle name, O’Ferrell, came from him, and I loved him dearly. He was a frequent user of the Smyth County Cannery in the Rich Valley community near the horse show grounds. Uncle Charlie would can lots of things, such as his homemade sausage, which was delicious. He also canned some victuals that were, well let’s just say, somewhat unique. Things like bear stew. Yep, genuine, killed on Flattop Mountain Bear Stew. Mom was not about to eat that, but naturally us boys had to give it a try. Dad heated up a big can, and we started eating. The flavor was surprisingly good, not at all bad, but chewing up Ol’ Smokey was a little different. It was tough to begin with and even tougher as one chewed. It also seemed to grow, and grow, and grow. I finally got a chunk or two down and decided I had enough bear meat to do me. I think the rest of the happy diners felt the same. (We did eat some ground bear once, cooked like hamburger, and it was good.) Another of the less than favorites was canned groundhog. Now I have eaten groundhog more than a few times. Cooked properly it can be very tasty. Two of my favorite ways are barbecued or baked. The trick with groundhog is making sure to properly clean it. Its fat can be quite rank as can small scent glands that need removing during the cleaning process. Canned groundhog, at least Uncle Charlie style, is a different matter. When Mom opened the large can containing the groundhog, there was a layer of groundhog fat, roughly three inches thick on top. And it smelled, as they say, to the high heavens. I don’t mean just a strongish bouquet, not a less than pleasant fragrance, nor a tang or whiff. I mean it had a “make-a-dog-puke” smell about it. Over the years, my buddy Harry Haynes and I did a lot of groundhog hunting. We would bring the better ones home, clean them and have his mom, the late Regina Haynes, cook them and boy did she know how. So I know what a groundhog scent gland smells like. This was that doubled or tripled and cooked in groundhog grease. My mom was the kindest, gentlest person I ever knew, but this time she looked somewhat like the demon-possessed girl in the Exorcist. You have never seen a grown man and his almost grown sons scurry so hard to dispose of a rank-smelling big can of groundhog. I have occasionally wondered what the fellow patrons of the cannery thought the day that rotten groundhog smell began to permeate the cannery. According to Crystal Peek of the Washington County Extension Office, food canned properly at home is safe to eat for up to a year. However, food canned during World War II was recently tested and found to be free of botulism and other toxin and could have been safely eaten. However, there is a difference between food safe to eat and food that would still taste fresh and delicious. I have eaten a bunch of green beans out of a canning jar long after the summer had faded and they were always good. Same goes for tomatoes, which were delicious, and many other vegetables, fruits, sausage and other consumables. It is still a way to save money, avoid additives and preservatives, and just enjoy the fruits (and veggies) of your labor. It might also restore some of the fun of completing a family project together. Further information can be found at the Virginia Tech Agricultural Department website. Still, the overall best place to start is your local County Extension Office, which should have its number listed in your local telephone directory. These folks can offer a ton of info on a plethora of subjects, all generally helpful for those of us here in the more rural areas of the Old Dominion. Give it a try. You may dredge up some pleasant memories. Plus you may find you save a good bit on those ever escalating grocery bills. And in today’s economy that sure can’t hurt.

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