Preserving Food and Preserving Family Memories

It all started this past spring when my daughter and I spent spring break with my parents. We were out looking at and sampling the cherries on my Dad's cherry trees. He kept saying, "I wish you could have seen how many cherries I had before the birds got them" and how he wished he had done something with them instead of letting them go to waste. So an idea was planted that we would try our hand at making cherry jelly. We figured this would give us all some quality time together and a very unique and special item to put on our tables and in our pantries.

It was a wonderful lesson for my six year old to see how you can take fresh fruit and turn it into jelly. She eagerly helped with each step from the sorting of the good and bad fruit all the way to labeling the finished product. She also learned a valuable lesson on sharing. She tried to remember every family member as she labeled the jars so that she could give them away. Later, Papa took her to the family member's house so that she could hand them out. They loved getting this gift and the fact that she remembered them.

Since that first experiment with the cherry jelly, we've also made Damson jelly from my aunt's Damson tree, Peach jelly from peaches that we picked up on our way back from Myrtle Beach. My husband actually was able to help out with this one and he became hooked too. We made white grape jelly from my other aunt's grapes that she grew at her place and even mixed some up using damson and grape.

We've also made just about every kind of pickle imaginable. (Our garden had an abundance of cucumbers.) We made several different kinds of sweet and dill pickles. We even tried our hand at canning tomatoes. (Talk about hard work!)

During our canning sessions, I was also able to preserve our family memories. I've made notes, saved recipes, and taken pictures that I plan on adding to my scrapbook. I've also learned things about my grandmother that I never knew before. I found out about all the ways she learned to "put things up" for her family during the hard times and it amazes me how much creativity she possessed to make ends meet.

Now when the family visits, we always make sure that "our" jelly is on the table for breakfast. We each have our favorite and are looking forward to next summer when we can do it all again.

If you would like to learn more about canning and preserving foods, you can visit Ball's website at www.freshpreserving.com or you can call 1-800-240-3340.