These are canned peaches. I want to tell you the story of my mum’s canned plums.
I have a memory of my mother’s canned plums. I share this memory with my two sisters. Whenever one of us speaks the memory aloud all three of us squint our eyes and will our tastebuds to travel back in time to Sugarloaf Warden Station in Riding Mountain National Park, Manitoba. When the winter nights roared with wailing winds and sideways snows we would clear the dinner table of dirty dishes and my mum would say, “Should we have plums?”
One of us would be asked to fetch the plums from the root cellar and the anticipation of dessert outweighed the terror of having to tromp down slatted stairs to the concrete basement where the wood stove glowed like a demon in the dark. In the root cellar, the potatoes were doing their terrifying mid-winter sprouting (nothing should have so many eyes) and one had to make quick work of grabbing the plum preserves off the shelf before scooting past the terrible potatoes and latching the cellar door shut. The final test was making it back up the stairs before the creature that lived beneath them grabbed ankles with a thorny, merciless grip.
Once back upstairs in the kitchen my mother would pop the mason jar open, spoon plums into bowls and drizzle cream over them. Plums and cream, the dessert of peasants. I have never tasted better dessert in all of my life. It was like eating sunshine in the dead of winter.
I’m in the kitchen canning peaches today. I have stripped them of their fuzzy pelts before slicing their thick flesh into quarters. I have brewed a small vat of syrup for the peach pieces to swim about in. The work is almost done for the day and I find myself looking forward to the winter. I know just how we’ll eat these peaches. We’ll come in from the howling wind after a day of hunting the dogs in the canyons and on the steppe. We’ll be windburned and tired and calorically deficient. We’ll feed the dogs and lean the shotguns against the wall to dry out and recover from the weather. Robert will clean the birds we shot while I prepare other aspects of dinner and we’ll cook our high desert bounty up into a simple, flavorful meal. We’ll eat at the dining room table by the fireplace. After dinner, we’ll look at each other and I’ll say, “Should we have peaches?” Robert will nod his head. I’ll take a jar down from the pantry shelf, pop it open and spoon the precious fruit into bowls with some yogurt or a drizzle of milk on top. As we sit and eat our fine treat, our peasant dessert, we’ll feel the sun of summer in our bellies and bones and we’ll sigh aloud as the wind bashes against the house and I’ll be thankful I spent today in the kitchen canning peaches.
Yes to the creature who lives under the stairs! I’m 68 and I still swear when I go downstair to do laundry, something is watching me. YIKES!!!
I feel the same way about canned tomatoes. There is something about tomatoes for me the keeps the summer heat in them.And when you empty a jar into a pan of chili or pasta sauce it just brings back the heat, the time and even the music I played.
However, you make a mighty case for home canned fruit with cream/yogurt.
Basements terrify me. Whenever we have been in the market to buy a house I always tell the realtor NO BASEMENTS!!! I won’t even consider it.
I should can some tomatoes…
Ditto!
(P.S. Do you use a particular recipe for your syrup?)
Home. Comfort. Peace. Warmth.Contentment.
All the best things. XX
Reading this was pure delight. There is something so natural and needed about this rhythm. Fresh air, tired body, basic good food.
Hear hear, I also always think of canning as a way of preserving summertime, yum! Those peaches look delicious! I just tried canning them and red raspberries for the first time this year, hope they taste as good as they look come winter! I always make pickles and canned tomatoes, so wanted to try something different. And tonite after work I’m going to make some salsa to can which is a first – but heck I have the garden and I love it, so why have I not made it before??! As to your basement story, sounds familiar 😉 My Mom was always like, “do you really think I’d allow monsters to live in our house” but I was still terrified to go down those stairs…. haha thanks for the laughs!
i save my canned peaches for the winter. because i eat my fill (half a box) fresh at canning time, i strictly reserve those preserved golden orbs for times when the temperature plummets or there is snow on the ground. they are also my favorite christmas present to give. packaged with a loaf of rustic bread for toasting. thanks for sharing.
carla