If we have any extra food, rather than waste it we can just wrap it or bag it and put it in the freezer. If we’ve had a wonderful harvest in the garden, into the freezer it can go, or we can make chutneys or jams, and less commonly we can preserve our bounty in other ways. I bought a dehydrator for example… and I confess that although I have used it a few times, it’s never really been worth the effort. The thing is, for us in our fortunate world we don’t actually need to grow a winter’s worth of vegetables, we might make jam and chutney for fun but it would be cheaper to buy it even though it might not taste as good (although I have made some disastrous jams and chutneys which went straight in the food waste once I’d tasted them!)
When Richard Sudell wrote his book about practical gardening published in the 1940’s, families really relied on what they could grow and produce to see them through the winter – especially during and just after the war. In those days few ordinary families even had refrigerators, let alone freezers, and it was important – sometimes vital to store food so it was preserved and didn’t rot or deteriorate.
Some crops such as leeks and Jerusalem artichokes could be left in the ground and dug up when needed – fine as long as there wasn’t a big freeze which would turn the soil rock hard. Some crops could just be stored ‘in heaps in a shed’, sometimes covered with straw and then soil; some could be stored in boxes and covered with dry sand or fine coal ash some had to be clamped. Clamping which has a different meaning to us motorists, required that the potatoes, parsnips, turnips, swede etc…
… should be piled up into a ridge=shaped heap over which six inches of straw is placed, and over this six inches of soil taken from the surrounding soil so as to form a trench at the base of the heap. This drains the water from beneath the clamp and keeps it dry. A drainpipe ventilator can be fitted up…
Apples could be stored, sometimes in potato boxes, sometimes in special stores, and kept over winter, and some varieties of pear, but many other fruits had to be made into jams and preserves – and even wine and liqueurs! Fruit could be dried in the oven – I could have done that instead of buying my dehydrator!
How fortunate we are. If we run out of something it’s easy enough at whatever time of year to buy more. In the past, not storing things correctly, not using them economically, or not growing enough could mean you had to go without!
Lois Elsden 