My Mom was from North Carolina tobacco country and she canned vegetables. If she didn't get enough tomatoes to can from her garden she'd buy overripe ones from farmers or from the store and can them. I recall that the process seemed quite laborious with sterilizing the jars and all. I loved the results, though. I remember cautioning her to always use the proper matching lids for the mason jars because sometimes she'd get careless and use any lid that fit. She was one to do things her own way and didn't pay much attention to me. The last year she canned anything, one of her jars of canned tomatoes that didn't have the right lid had a nasty brown color instead of the usual nice red. I quietly disposed of it without pointing it out to her. She's 93 in this picture. I miss her so, so much.
I canned some squash pickles today while Earl E. Bird watched. Pickled squash????? You say. That's what I thought to start with. A friend gave me the recipe and I put it aside for several years. But then one summer, I had squash up the ying yang and I thought, "Well, Why not?" They turned out to be delicious. You can't buy them at the grocery store.
Those squash look good, Shirley. My great aunt (grandma's sister) used to pickle all kinds of stuff, from watermelon rind to who knows what. I think she was just bored but she made the best bread-and-butter pickles on the planet.
Friends in the next town make pickled zucchini with a little onion / capsicum they are my favourite with a bit of cheese on a dry biscuit .
I completely disagree, Lou. Things like fishing, hunting, growing crops, canning vegetables, salting or smoking meat and the like were once survival skills. Hopefully they won't be needed as such in the future, but if things go down the tube you may wish you had these abilities. Plus, for me, doing for myself is a lot more satisfying than having others do for me. And they can be fun. I like fun.
.. shotgun and a rifle and a four wheel drive.. yes, indeed. (...ain't too many things these ole boys can't do.)