Not much to write about today, so here is another story of mine.
My first foray into a somewhat rocky relationship with preserving was at Hutt Intermediate School. As usual Mrs. Clark, my very favorite teacher, had written the ingredients list for next weeks lesson up on the board.
1 pound of Golden Queen peaches,
1 one pint agee preserving jar
1 screw band and seal (for the agee jar)
Mmmmmm I like peaches, oh, but the skin's so furry and yucky
I carefully carried my cooking things in a cane shopping basket. It's rough sides scratched and bumped against my legs as I walked to the bus stop, but I didn't mind. On the bus the boys from our class would ask "What yous girls making today eh?" ever hopeful for a taste of the finished product at lunchtime.
On Home E day us girls had sewing straight after assembly, then cooking, while boys went off to woodwork and metal work. Cooking lasted all the way from morning playtime up to lunchtime. Then the whole afternoon was taken up with school sports, no regular classes at all. Me and my best friend, always partnered up on Home E day.
I liked Home E day
'Good morning everyone"
"Good morning Mrs Clarke"
After the ritual greetings we set about the business of turning the fruit into proper preserves. Our workstation was at the very front, and we quickly got out all the utensils we'd need from it's cupboards. The cooking stoves and cleanup sinks were around the perimeter of the room.
We learned how to skin the peaches by pouring boiling water over them.
We learned how to cook the ripe golden fruit.
We learned how to arrange the golden slices in the hot sterilized jars.
And, we learned how to overflow the syrup and screw the seal down tight.
It wasn't till 1969 when we lived in a small country village that I tried my hand at preserving again. There in the garden was a beautiful Golden Queen peach tree loaded down with sweet succulent fruit. I was proud of the rows of bottled sunshine in my pantry. That success spurred me on to more. We had a bumper crop of beans that year too, but no freezer. I know, there in my trusty Edmonds cookbook was a recipe for preserving beans in salt brine. The jars of neatly packed green beans from our very own garden looked pretty alongside the jars of golden peaches from our very own tree. Later when there were no more fresh beans from the garden it was time to open my first jar. Yuck they were awful, too salty, and oh so tough no matter how I cooked them. Tip the jars out and cross that recipe off.
Put that down to experience.
From the back roads around the village we brought home buckets full of plump purple blackberry. The rich purple made a beautiful contrast to the peaches in the pantry. There's something very satisfying about the look of shelves full of preserves, and even though it was off the laundry I used to leave the pantry door open just so's I could admire them. Soon there were jars of lemon honey, beetroot relish. And lots and lots of tomatoes too.
I thought I'd got the hang of this preserving thing now and my sights turned to other produce from the garden. Hmmm we've got a lot of pumkin. I wonder how that would go? Trusty old Edmonds didn't say anything about preserving pumkin. I'll do just one jar, I thought just to see. Just as well! I learned that you can't bottle pumpkin the same way you do peaches. Now about that blackberry jam, we'd used up a couple of jars already, but when I opened the next one. What was that smell I held the jam up under my nose and got a distinct wiff of ... blackberry nip! That awful cheep grog we used to take to parties. I must have put too much sugar in, and the jam had been quietly fermenting. I chucked out the whole lot.
Put that down to experience too.
By 1974 we'd moved to a bigger town. Money was always a bit tight, so I baked all our biscuits and sometimes I even made our bread. In the garden another bumper crop of tomatoes was ready to be turned into sauce. Four hungry children put tomato sauce on just about everything, well mine did. So each year I would make several batches of the red spicy sauce. This year we're going metric and the three pound bag of sugar had become one and a half kilos. I know now that one and a half kilos is more that three pound. When I unscrewed the top of the next flagon of sauce it went of with a hiss and yes there was a distinct smell of alcohol.
"Quick get those jars outside and take the caps off.
And put it down to experience.
One day about 1993 I came across a recipe for Tea Brandy and I guess my previous unintentional ventures into home brewing had whetted my appetite. Not much to this brewing lark I thought. The hardest part was waiting the minimum 6 months before sampling the first bottle. Well, it smelled good. Just like real brandy I thought as I poured a little of the clear amber liquid into my glass. Yuck.
And it down to experience.
It's 1997 and our second year in PNG. On Monday evenings we go to "Hash" (Hash House Harriers). Along with other expats we walk or run a set course then after a barbecue tea get down to the serous business of the evening. Socializing and of course drinking. All the other Hasher's make their own beer, we thought we would too.
Once we'd collected enough plastic coke bottles to hold a brew we were ready for our first attempt. We bought a 'kit' from the local supermarket and just followed the directions. Easy peasy, and soon there was a plastic bin full of dark brown liquid on the bench. Now it's supposed to take several days before it's ready to bottle. The recipe said to let it brew until the froth had risen then gone down to form small islands on the surface of the liquid. In the tropical heat of 30 degrees this happened overnight and by the next evening there floating on the top were the little islands, so we bottled it. Taking care to put a small amount of sugar in the bottom of each bottle. We didn't have a lot of room in our little unit so we stored the brew under the stairs. This was also where we hung our wetsuits and kept the rest of our diving and fishing gear. One morning a week or so later when we came down to breakfast I said to The Man . "Ooh it smells like a brewery down here". You guessed it a couple of the bottle had exploded overnight. It took weeks to get the smell out of our wetsuits.
Another one to be put down to experience.
You can tell by now can't you that I'm not put off trying out new things, or by the odd little failure. So when I was looking for something to make for Hash's Oktoberfest, a friend from the Solomon's, gave me her village recipe for pineapple wine. Really simple stuff. Just add a couple of chopped up pineapples to a drum of water add dissolved sugar and yeast, stir daily for a couple of days, add more dissolved sugar stir for a few more days then, drink. I followed the directions and soon the brew was ready. Rough wasn't the word for it, but it was alcoholic, which was probably all that her village wanted. I entered it in the Oktobefest's worst brew competition and thank goodness it didn't win. The prize for that was to drink all the other entries in the category.
Oh well, put that down to experience too.
My first foray into a somewhat rocky relationship with preserving was at Hutt Intermediate School. As usual Mrs. Clark, my very favorite teacher, had written the ingredients list for next weeks lesson up on the board.
1 pound of Golden Queen peaches,
1 one pint agee preserving jar
1 screw band and seal (for the agee jar)
Mmmmmm I like peaches, oh, but the skin's so furry and yucky
I carefully carried my cooking things in a cane shopping basket. It's rough sides scratched and bumped against my legs as I walked to the bus stop, but I didn't mind. On the bus the boys from our class would ask "What yous girls making today eh?" ever hopeful for a taste of the finished product at lunchtime.
On Home E day us girls had sewing straight after assembly, then cooking, while boys went off to woodwork and metal work. Cooking lasted all the way from morning playtime up to lunchtime. Then the whole afternoon was taken up with school sports, no regular classes at all. Me and my best friend, always partnered up on Home E day.
I liked Home E day
'Good morning everyone"
"Good morning Mrs Clarke"
After the ritual greetings we set about the business of turning the fruit into proper preserves. Our workstation was at the very front, and we quickly got out all the utensils we'd need from it's cupboards. The cooking stoves and cleanup sinks were around the perimeter of the room.
We learned how to skin the peaches by pouring boiling water over them.
We learned how to cook the ripe golden fruit.
We learned how to arrange the golden slices in the hot sterilized jars.
And, we learned how to overflow the syrup and screw the seal down tight.
It wasn't till 1969 when we lived in a small country village that I tried my hand at preserving again. There in the garden was a beautiful Golden Queen peach tree loaded down with sweet succulent fruit. I was proud of the rows of bottled sunshine in my pantry. That success spurred me on to more. We had a bumper crop of beans that year too, but no freezer. I know, there in my trusty Edmonds cookbook was a recipe for preserving beans in salt brine. The jars of neatly packed green beans from our very own garden looked pretty alongside the jars of golden peaches from our very own tree. Later when there were no more fresh beans from the garden it was time to open my first jar. Yuck they were awful, too salty, and oh so tough no matter how I cooked them. Tip the jars out and cross that recipe off.
Put that down to experience.
From the back roads around the village we brought home buckets full of plump purple blackberry. The rich purple made a beautiful contrast to the peaches in the pantry. There's something very satisfying about the look of shelves full of preserves, and even though it was off the laundry I used to leave the pantry door open just so's I could admire them. Soon there were jars of lemon honey, beetroot relish. And lots and lots of tomatoes too.
I thought I'd got the hang of this preserving thing now and my sights turned to other produce from the garden. Hmmm we've got a lot of pumkin. I wonder how that would go? Trusty old Edmonds didn't say anything about preserving pumkin. I'll do just one jar, I thought just to see. Just as well! I learned that you can't bottle pumpkin the same way you do peaches. Now about that blackberry jam, we'd used up a couple of jars already, but when I opened the next one. What was that smell I held the jam up under my nose and got a distinct wiff of ... blackberry nip! That awful cheep grog we used to take to parties. I must have put too much sugar in, and the jam had been quietly fermenting. I chucked out the whole lot.
Put that down to experience too.
By 1974 we'd moved to a bigger town. Money was always a bit tight, so I baked all our biscuits and sometimes I even made our bread. In the garden another bumper crop of tomatoes was ready to be turned into sauce. Four hungry children put tomato sauce on just about everything, well mine did. So each year I would make several batches of the red spicy sauce. This year we're going metric and the three pound bag of sugar had become one and a half kilos. I know now that one and a half kilos is more that three pound. When I unscrewed the top of the next flagon of sauce it went of with a hiss and yes there was a distinct smell of alcohol.
"Quick get those jars outside and take the caps off.
And put it down to experience.
One day about 1993 I came across a recipe for Tea Brandy and I guess my previous unintentional ventures into home brewing had whetted my appetite. Not much to this brewing lark I thought. The hardest part was waiting the minimum 6 months before sampling the first bottle. Well, it smelled good. Just like real brandy I thought as I poured a little of the clear amber liquid into my glass. Yuck.
And it down to experience.
It's 1997 and our second year in PNG. On Monday evenings we go to "Hash" (Hash House Harriers). Along with other expats we walk or run a set course then after a barbecue tea get down to the serous business of the evening. Socializing and of course drinking. All the other Hasher's make their own beer, we thought we would too.
Once we'd collected enough plastic coke bottles to hold a brew we were ready for our first attempt. We bought a 'kit' from the local supermarket and just followed the directions. Easy peasy, and soon there was a plastic bin full of dark brown liquid on the bench. Now it's supposed to take several days before it's ready to bottle. The recipe said to let it brew until the froth had risen then gone down to form small islands on the surface of the liquid. In the tropical heat of 30 degrees this happened overnight and by the next evening there floating on the top were the little islands, so we bottled it. Taking care to put a small amount of sugar in the bottom of each bottle. We didn't have a lot of room in our little unit so we stored the brew under the stairs. This was also where we hung our wetsuits and kept the rest of our diving and fishing gear. One morning a week or so later when we came down to breakfast I said to The Man . "Ooh it smells like a brewery down here". You guessed it a couple of the bottle had exploded overnight. It took weeks to get the smell out of our wetsuits.
Another one to be put down to experience.
You can tell by now can't you that I'm not put off trying out new things, or by the odd little failure. So when I was looking for something to make for Hash's Oktoberfest, a friend from the Solomon's, gave me her village recipe for pineapple wine. Really simple stuff. Just add a couple of chopped up pineapples to a drum of water add dissolved sugar and yeast, stir daily for a couple of days, add more dissolved sugar stir for a few more days then, drink. I followed the directions and soon the brew was ready. Rough wasn't the word for it, but it was alcoholic, which was probably all that her village wanted. I entered it in the Oktobefest's worst brew competition and thank goodness it didn't win. The prize for that was to drink all the other entries in the category.
Oh well, put that down to experience too.
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