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Canning, preserving and pickling

Everywoman’s Canning Book

by Mary B. Hughes · 1918 · Whitcomb & Barrows

Canning times and methods in this book predate modern testing. For jars you plan to eat from, follow current tested guidance (see our guide to cooking from old cookbooks).

The most practical way to conserve foods is to can or dry them for future use when the harvests are abundant and foodstuffs are low in price. To encourage housewives to do more canning, preserving, and drying, I have prepared this book, dealing with the problems of home canning as they developed at Mrs. Hemenway's Canning Kitchen for War Relief, in Boston. The conditions there, under which 8,000 jars were safely sealed for winter use, without loss, were the same as those found in the average household. Five years' experience canning my own garden surplus taught me many practical points which have been incorporated here, with the hope of aiding other housekeepers in their canning.

Shelf note

A 1918 wartime primer from Boston. Hughes wrote it out of the canning kitchen run for war relief, where she says 8,000 jars were sealed without a loss, and she aimed it at ordinary kitchens. The book covers cold-pack canning, an “intermittent” method that boils the jars on three successive days, jelly, pickles, drying and contributed recipes.

Nearly all of it survives here. Read it as history: the water-bath times it gives for corn, beans and meat are the kind current guidance warns against, because low-acid foods need a pressure canner.

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Contents

All 42 sections are on the shelf. Start at the top or jump in anywhere.

  1. Foreword For Every Womans Canning Book
  2. General Directions For Home Canning
  3. The Correct Processing Of Food For Canning
  4. The Intermittent or Fractional Method of Canning
  5. Equipment Needed For Canning
  6. Canning Frequently Asked Questions
  7. Canning Frequently Asked Questions. Continued
  8. Preparation Of Home-canned Products For The Table
  9. Recipes For Canning Vegetables
  10. Recipes For Canning Vegetables. Part 2
  11. Recipes For Canning Vegetables. Part 3
  12. Recipes For Canning Vegetables. Part 4
  13. Time Table For Canning Vegetables
  14. Recipes For Canning Soup Mixtures
  15. Recipes For Canning Meat And Fish
  16. Canning Fruit
  17. Recipes For Canning Fruit
  18. Recipe For Canning Apples
  19. Recipes For Canning Berries
  20. Sun-cooked Strawberry Preserve
  21. Time Table For Fruits And Berries With The Kind Of Syrup To Use
  22. Cold Water Method For Preserving Fruit
  23. Jelly Making
  24. General Rules to Follow in Making Jelly
  25. Recipes For Canning Fruit And Berry Jelly
  26. Recipes For Canning Fruit And Berry Jelly. Continued
  27. Preserving Fruit Juices
  28. Recipes For Preserving Fruit Juices
  29. How To Pickle
  30. Recipes For Pickling Fruits And Vegetables
  31. Recipes For Pickling Fruits And Vegetables. Part 2
  32. Recipes For Pickling Fruits And Vegetables. Part 3
  33. Recipes For Pickling Fruits And Vegetables. Part 4
  34. Recipes For Making Pickled Ketchup
  35. Recipes For Making Pickled Relish
  36. Contributed Canning Recipes
  37. Contributed Canning Recipes. Part 2
  38. Contributed Canning Recipes. Part 3
  39. Contributed Canning Recipes. Part 4
  40. Recipes For Canning Mincemeat
  41. How To Dry Your Vegetables And FruitsAlong with the work of canning and preserving goes the simple process of drying. Throughout Europe this work is extensively carried on, and in Germany, particularly, the dried product has been an impo...
  42. Drying Vegetables
  43. Drying Fruits

Questions about this book

Is it safe to can vegetables by this book?

Not for low-acid foods. The 1918 water-bath and fractional methods for corn, beans, peas and meat predate the research behind modern processing times. Current tested guidance calls for a pressure canner for those foods.

What is the intermittent or fractional method?

Boiling the sealed jars on three successive days, on the theory that spores which survive the first boiling will sprout and be killed on the second or third. It is no longer recommended.

Who wrote it?

Mary B. Hughes, who worked at Mrs. Hemenway’s Canning Kitchen for War Relief in Boston. Whitcomb and Barrows published the book in 1918.

Mentioned in Cooking from a 1900s cookbook: ovens, measures and what to leave alone, Old cookbooks as historical sources: what a recipe book can prove.

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