Oral History Program Adonna Auschlimann Interviewed by Shanna Seiler 16 February 2005 i Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah Adonna Aeschlimann Interviewed by Shanna Seiler 16 February 2005 Copyright © 2012 by Weber State University, Stewart Library ii Mission Statement The Oral History Program of the Stewart Library was created to preserve the institutional history of Weber State University and the Davis, Ogden and Weber County communities. By conducting carefully researched, recorded, and transcribed interviews, the Oral History Program creates archival oral histories intended for the widest possible use. Interviews are conducted with the goal of eliciting from each participant a full and accurate account of events. The interviews are transcribed, edited for accuracy and clarity, and reviewed by the interviewees (as available), who are encouraged to augment or correct their spoken words. 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These oral history assignments were created to help Weber State students learn the value and importance of recording public history and to benefit the expansion of the Weber State oral history collections. ____________________________________ Oral history is a method of collecting historical information through recorded interviews between a narrator with firsthand knowledge of historically significant events and a well-informed interviewer, with the goal of preserving substantive additions to the historical record. Because it is primary material, oral history is not intended to present the final, verified, or complete narrative of events. It is a spoken account. 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It is recommended that this oral history be cited as follows: Aeschlimann, Adonna, an oral history by Shanna Seiler, 16 February 2005, WSU Stewart Library Oral History Program, University Archives, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, UT. iii Abstract: The following is an oral history interview with Adonna Aeschlimann. The interview was conducted on February 16, 2005 by Shanna Richelle Seiler, in the location of Ogden, Utah. This interview describes the various processes and techniques involved in canning foods for storage. SS: This is Shanna Seiler. Today's date is February 16, 2005. Will you tell me your full name, date and place of birth? AA: My name is Adonna Maudi Lee Price Aeschlimann. My Date of birth is Nov 26, 1938. I have canned learning from my mother and neighbors for years and I make it a practice to continue to can because I feel that it's better food for you. It is properly canned and it has much better flavor. I do not know what is being put into the food a lot of time in the stores to make it look very pretty and to try and flavor it, but it still does not have the flavor from home canned food. SS: I will ask questions about your past and then any stories that you remember, just tell me about them. Did your mother can? AA: Constantly, that was a source of survival in those days because she was in the depression time, so to be able to make the money stretch far enough and to help other people on our block who were totally out of work, which my father was not, fortunately as a mailman. She followed the canning rules and canned continually where we always had our own supply for survival and to be able to give to our neighbors to help them out during that time. Also, it was one of the sources of drying apples when she was a young 1 girl that she sold for 50 cents a bushel to be able to get enough tuition to go to the University of Utah and graduate. This was her source of actual earning monies when she was home from school. SS: Did she do anything else? AA: No, it was the drying and canning of apples. That was her biggest source. It didn't matter if they were apples on the tree or apples on the ground they were all cut and dried. Everything was used; nothing was wasted. That’s how at 50 cents a bushel that's how she earned money little bit by little bit to be able to put herself through college at the University of Utah. So, it has been a tradition to save money and to help us to survive throughout my family’s life. I have taught my children, they also can and it has been a survival method for them when money isn't easy and jobs aren't easy. It has been the source three times that my husband was out of work for over six months that we lived out of our basement, and that is why we continue to can is that it is a survival source. SS: Do you remember how your mom used to can? AA: Exactly like I do. I have the things lined up here on the table, only she did not have a pressure cooker. You did it in an open kettle and steaming juices and the way that she did low acid foods like beans and beets, they were put on a monkey stove, they called it that, and was heated with wood and fire. They were pressured, or cooked for over 3 hours on that monkey stove keeping the heat going at a high range to be able to make 2 the beans and the none acid foods edible so you didn't get Botulism, which is very dangerous. It is very important to know what you are doing when you are canning. SS: Do you have brothers and sisters also? AA: I have two sisters. SS: Did you and your mother and sisters do this together? AA: No, it was my mother and I that carried on the tradition, my sisters did not. They were too involved in boys. SS: Did your mom make jam? AA: Oh yes. SS: What kinds of jam? AA: She used to make apricot, raspberry, boysenberry, blackberry… And it was amazing because we grew most of these, we had the bushes right in our own backyard which I do today to be able to gather my own berries. I have boysenberries, raspberries, strawberries. These are all canned from my own backyard so that I know where the food is coming from, or I do go to farmers that I know and I know how they raise their food so that I know what's in their food. I don't like all the chemicals that are in all the foods. I think they are destroying our bodies, I think they are destroying us. I think they are giving us cancer and causing many, many physical handicaps that are killing us today. That's why I am such an advocate on home canning. 3 SS: You said that your mom canned constantly and that she gave it to the neighbors. AA: She gave it to the neighbors, those that were out of work during the depression and those who were having a very difficult time. She also helped her mother and father who lived in Spanish Fork by canning for them and helping them also. So it has been a hands on, handed down through the centuries from one family to the next. SS: Do you have recipes or techniques that your mother showed you? AA: Oh yes, I have many recipes. Most of them are in my head because you learn that as you go through. However, you do have to keep abreast of what is happening to your food. For instance like the tomatoes, they used to have acid in them. We could buy form the Del Monte Cannery down here, tomatoes that were totally acid and farmers that used to be able to buy the plants that were totally acid so that you had no problem just cold packing. But today they have cross-bred tomatoes so much that you do not know if you got enough acid in your product which can create botulism and in this respect you add 2 tablespoons of lemon juice which has your acid to each quart and cold pack for a lot longer, up to 55 minutes per quart. You can also put them in the pressure cooker which takes a little less time and brings them up to pressure. It keeps them in there for ten minutes or so, whatever the pressure book says. Same with your chili sauces because they have green peppers which are low in acid. Anything that is low in acid you pretty much got to boil a lot longer or put into the pressure cooker to be able to stay away from botulism and keep your family safe. 4 SS: Do you can the same types of foods that your mother did? AA: Yes, I try to have a variety of veggies and of course all of your fruits because fruits are high in acid so they are easy. You can cold pack those. They say to can them a little bit longer in time, but I have found when you can them as long as the extension service wants you to they turn brown within the year. Whereas our parents taught us anywhere form 15-20 minutes after they come to a boil and your fruit will stay beautiful. I do not know why the extension service wants them to can them longer, unless they think that maybe there are molds that accumulate in the bottle. But I have gone back to canning the 20 minutes, I should say. My mother canned it at 15, I do it at 20, the extension service does it at 25. So there is a conflict there in canning your fruits, and I do can all of those. There is apples, peaches, pears, fruit cocktail, apricots, boysenberries, plums… Any time of this you can cold pack without having to pressure. I have found one thing, you have got to keep your fruits and vegetables in a dark room where it is cool, 38 degrees or 40 degrees somewhere preferably 38 to 36 degrees to keep it cool. Otherwise, your fruits start to darken throughout the year if you don't use them. From the extension service I understand that they can still have quality even though it is not as good for you. It gives you more bulk rather than vitamins and minerals. They will last up to 5 to 6 years. But, I have found that for appearance sake and coloring and that, and to get people to eat them and they taste good, your year to two year up to make; particularly if you are doing boysenberries, blackberries, black raspberries, anything in the dark fruits start to go bad. Dark cherries, they will go bad within that two years, 5 especially if you leave the stones in; the cherries, they start to get mushy inside. So, it is best to try and eat your dark fruits within that year because they do start to change flavor and they start to go dark on you and they are just not as good. They are edible, but just not as good. I also do all of my chili sauces, my tomatoes, my some canned tomato soup, I do a soup also with macaroni, but that and each one of those you have to have a high acid tomato and you have to know where you are getting them from, otherwise you do need to put them in the pressure cooker for a little bit of time at the end of processing on the regular stove where the juices are extracted and then put into soups with some vegetables and celery which is low. Onions, which are low in acid, so it is best to put anything with your tomato product into your pressure cooker for a short period of time. Jams, now we have had a problem with lids. They changed them recently. The old Kerr and Ball lids used to be totally grey, they had a thick rubber band, which I will show you here and that is why I was bringing these up. When they have the rubber band you can put those on and cold pack and they will come down and stay on where you can plank them up and down. Because, when they are up and they are not sucked in, they are not sealed and those you use to be able to use. They were wonderful. You did not have to keep cooking and putting into a cold pack canner and processing longer when you used this type of lid. The new lid that they have developed, it looks like it has a rubber plus a plastic to it. It is much thinner around the edge, it is a reddish in color and after 6 months you may think that the suction is down but all of the sudden in 6 months your lids may start coming up. So, in that way you have not only 6 cooked your jam and put it in your bottle, you got to turn around and cook it some more which I think is detrimental to the jam and your foods because you are burning up and killing the vitamins and minerals that are in the food by the extra processing and putting them into a cold packer just to be able to seal that lid so it does not pop up, which it won’t do if it is in a cold pack canner after you have already processed it and put in after doing open kettle. The lids that were grey, you just did your open kettle and put those lids on after they have been steamed and heated whereas these red ones you cannot bring them to a boil, that pops your lids also. You barely have to just barely be in hot water. I like the boiling because that is a form of sanitation when you are putting hot jams into a sterilized bottle and sterilized lids to go on and your food is totally sterilized. Whereas these lids your cooking your food to death and killing it. I also do freezing and mostly when you do freezing with your MCP and fruit jell you have to put these into your jams and to freeze and they can be frozen if you’re sure you have put them down a good inch or so below the lid. The lid does not have to be boiled and sealed. But they should be an inch down, as should most everything that you can should be an inch lower in the bottle. If you get them too full, your bottles will crack and break in the freezer. So it is a good idea that if you have the freezing containers that you put the food into the freezing containers, and that one has been in here for a long time you can tell, cause it ices. But they should be a good inch or so down. That's a good way to pure your syrups over your strawberries and freeze those. Flash freeze them up on 9 for 2 hours in your freezer so that they are totally frozen fast, and so that the bacteria does 7 not start to grow inside your containers. With your corn, when you freeze corn you need to blanch it because there is milk products in corn and that makes the corn so that the milk does not come out so it seals it off. You just barely blanch it for a short period of time in warm water, then cut it off your cobs and put it into your bags and freeze it, flash freeze it again. This is your freezing process. You also have the juicer where you can use it for grapes, apricots, it doesn't matter. Your dark grape juice, your apricot juice and even to make your syrups, they can go through the steamer and that brings your juice down and leaves all of your pulp above. If you take all of the stones out of things, if you have stones in them, you can take the pulp from above and add just a small amount of juice to it and make just the most beautiful jam that doesn't have to cook near as long on the stove. It will be all mushed, for you merely put sugar in with it. I do not use MCP pectin, I put equal amounts of sugar, equal amounts of fruit together. Bring it up to a boil, and depending on the thickness that you want it, it takes anywhere from 10-20 minutes to finish. But if you do it in the steamer it is usually around 10-15 minutes and you are able to put it into your boiling bottles that have been sterilized and the lids that have been sterilized and you've got your syrup and you also have your jam out of a juicer. The way they say you’re not supposed to, but I have always done it this way. When you are making juice from your juicer and you are bringing your boiling juice out into boiling bottles, I have always just slipped my sugar into the bottom of the bottle. It has not been melted before and I have never had a problem whatsoever, just putting the sugar in and putting your juice in and your boiling lids on. That's it, and once again, 8 you have to cold pack it which you should not have to do if you have the proper kinds of seal underneath like the old rubber lids did. There is also the open kettle, of which you can make applesauce and very little water in the bottom, peel your apples, core them, put them into your pan, put the amount of sugar that tastes good to you, put it in there and boil them and down bring them down. Also, put those into your boiling jars and process them the same way, and have your apple sauce. Also beets can be done this way if they are vinegar beets. They have to be cooked, peeled, and then you put them back into your open kettle and it has a lot of vinegar in the recipe, and the vinegar is the thing that keeps you from ever getting your botulism. Your lemon and your vinegar are the two things that help you in this process. So, you can have pickled beets that do not have to be done in a pressure cooker. However, regular beets do have to be pressured also because they have no acid content around them. Another thing when you are doing tomatoes; do not ever use iodized salt. My mother taught me that when you use iodized salt, it will blow your bottles and will blow your lids sometimes when you are processing. You should always use a canning salt or a plain salt in your bottles of tomatoes, and things that are being pressured should always have a plain. If you’re doing meats and other types of vegetables, always use plain salt or canning salt. They are both one in the same. I have done some dehydrated, but mostly I have done apricots on the roof between two screens and if you lay them out there between two or three days, they dry and they are absolutely beautiful. Put them into a container and eat those throughout the winter. 9 SS: Do you save the apricot seeds? AA: No, I used to and there never used to be a problem. My mother always used to put the apricot seeds into the apricots, but they have an apricot called the Chinese apricot and we have a Morpark and another one that I don't recall. I understand that the Chinese apricots have a poison. They are considered poison. When my mother was young and we always put the seed in it, it was more with the Morpark type apricot which is a longer and bigger apricot. It is almost a cross between a peach and an apricot. The Chinese apricot is very small and round and bright orange and it has... Anyway, so we do not put the seed in the apricot jam, but I don't put the seeds in anymore because they say that they are poison to us. Another good thing when you are doing apricot jam, I never make straight apricot. I always put pineapple in, it is full of acid and it flavors it a lot differently and I enjoy it a lot more. Now your jams in the freezers taste more like your fresh jam right off the bush, your berries, whereas the ones that are cooked are a little more sugary; a little sweeter tasting. Once again, if you freeze you have got to put MCP pectin or fruit jell in. I have experimented with a fruit jell this last year. I do not like the flavor as much nor the consistency as much as the MCP. They do put in white Karol into theirs and that keeps the berries form crystallizing when you’re freezing your jams. So I do prefer the MCP over your fruit jell because of consistency and sweetness. Pickles, they are not hard to can at all because they are low acid, but they are covered with at least half to half-quart of vinegar. So, you are getting your acid product covering your dill pickle. Hot pickles, which I have done, have 10 the jalapenos in and the carrots and cauliflower. They are totally covered in white vinegar. I really don't like to process them as much. They turn dark faster. It's like the old dill pickles that they used to put in the barrel and they would put them right into vinegar, that is how they processed and kept those. You didn't have to have a sealed lid on them. Basically, you don't have to, however I do. They do have a lot of vinegar, I mean the whole bottle is vinegar. SS: Tell me about the green beans. AA: The green beans have to be done in a pressure cooker. They are low in acid and there is also yellow beans in this particular bottle, I like the mix. I don't like to can just strictly yellow beans because they go a funny color. Sometimes you can put green beans in with them, carrots in with them, or different varieties of vegetables in with them. You always have to pressure, and the vegetables in the bottom need the most time and that's the one you have to look for if you are mixing veggies. If you are just doing your straight green beans then you can pressure just exactly what it says. You always use your pressure book. There is two different kinds of pressure cookers. Mine has the gauge and every year you go to the extension center, or I go out to the bread place on Riverdale Road. They will take your lids and test them for you and you want to have them tested every single year because your poundage can go up or depend on your rubber sealant. You want to be sure that it is good and tight, have them check your seal that it hasn't gotten splitting a little bit. Always keep it oiled underneath with Crisco so that it stays soft and pliable. Have them test your poundage. If your poundage is too 11 far out then you need to replace your gauge. The other type of canner that they have that just wiggles on, they never have to be tested because they just pressure between 5 and 15 pounds, the weighted gage. They just jiggle back and forth and they never have to be tested, whereas the dial gage has to be tested every year so that you’re sure that you are pressuring within the poundage that you need to keep your food safe from botulism. Most of our books that we buy, you should have a good Ball or Kerr book and follow a lot of their directions and read them. And follow your pressure book and follow it cautiously. Most books are set at two thousand feet, which is a sea level, and for every thousand feet you have to add one pound of pressure. That is how you gauge so that you are at what you need to do here. Our altitude here is about 4,600 feet, so we have to add almost 2.5 pounds of pressure to what the book says. When you are doing your beans, to be on the safe side, you have to add your poundage here. Almost every cookbook is geared for sea level. That is how we do our beans. Anything that is low acid must go in the pressure cooker. Tools that you use and really need a lot of is a big wooden spoon. Do not use a metal spoon. If you bang it sometimes with the heat you actually can crack your pan and crack your glass. So you always first be sure that your bottle is the same temperature as the syrup that's going in and a use a rubber spatula to go down the sides so that you do not cause chips on top of the bottle or break your bottle going in. And if you do have a chipped bottle, immediately throw it away because you put that into a pressure gauge or even a hot water canner, they can split instantly and you have lost your product that you are trying 12 to can and so you've ended up wasting instead of saving. You also need one of the main things that you absolutely need is a jar lifter. For years I tried to use just hot pads and burned my hands. Always have that. You need when you are getting your lids out of the water, you need a lid wand. It has a magnet on the bottom of it and it will pull your lids right out of the hot water. You need usually two or three good sieves, good baskets when you are making your foods, and lots of hot pads. Follow your instructions in your book and what you have learned from your parents because what they taught you is pretty accurate other than your tomatoes today that have to be. You have to be cautious because of the botulism scare. With pickles, be sure you have enough acid in them so that you do not get botulism with those. Most of your pears, peaches, apricots, any of your fruits they ate loaded with acid. You do not have to be worried with those unless your bottle just plain unseals and is developing yeast or mold on top, of which you pitch out. In the olden days, many times raspberry jam, they actually did it cold and put the sugar in it, put it into a jar, and only put a sack cloth over the top and they would scrape the mold off the top and eat the jam underneath. That's when they did not have the proper things to work with and it did not hurt them. I remember being taught that one, also by my mother. Is there anything else now that you need to learn about canning? SS: How much food do you usually can in a year? AA: Way too much now that I have lost my family. I used to can between 500 and 700 quarts to keep my family of six in food and I had enough left over usually for the 13 second year. With all the rest of the foods that we had, why, we had more than enough. I love the fact that you don't have to go eat peaches and pears out of the store. I bought a case once of peaches and the peaches weren't very good. They tasted like they were kept in lye water. They were hard and we ended up giving them to the DI or something. They are slick, they are tough, I do not like the way they are canned in the stores. They don't have the flavor or nothing. That's why I continue to do this, now I have passed not only the tradition on to both of my daughters, I have taught them, even my sons, and I have passed the tradition on. Now my granddaughter comes home with her mother and we can together. She now is learning to do the same thing. So the tradition continues to carry on with the hands-on process. Because of necessity, because of the flavor and because you feel good when you look at it when it is finished. SS: What do you do with the extra canned foods? AA: I don't usually have a lot left over but sometimes I do have to throw some out. Particularly your dark that go bad, your dark berries, grapes, anything like that. After two years they aren't good. I usually can pretty much what we will eat throughout the year. Sometimes there is some that is disposed of. If it is getting close to that point where I think I hand it out to my family and they consume it. SS: Do you give a lot away? AA: Yes. 14 SS: I know that you gave some to Shanda. AA: Yes, but I gave it to Shanda because she is my dear friend. When I was very ill and young she took care of my baby. She helped me when I could not get out of bed. I was bed ridden. It is my turn now to return the favor that she did for me because she is a wonderful person and we are friends. She now is unable so I can for her now. SS: Barbra told me that you sent a whole trunk-full up to Idaho. AA: Yeah, that is why. She saved, had strep so bad that it was going to my heart and it was causing rheumatic fever. I couldn't get out of bed to do anything. She took my little babe that was only about one or one and a half years old and she took care of her when I was unable to take care of her. We became lifelong friends. She always helped me and I helped her. Now it is my turn to help her where she can't help herself. A little gift back. She is a very generous and wonderful person and I love her. SS: Do you ever use the public cannery? AA: Not, I haven't. I have gone down and helped at the Deseret, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. I have gone down and helped in the canning process there. I have used their foods, I have bought their foods. They are wonderful foods, they do a marvelous service. I have gone and contributed to that. I feel that we all should do that, if we did that, if we all helped our brothers and sisters, then none of us would go hungry. SS: Do they send those out all over the world? 15 AA: All over the world, yes, people that are hungry. It is not just for people in the LDS church. They are for the world that is starving. They are there to help. We are supposed to help each other, help our brothers and sisters, and that is what we do. Those that are out of jobs and in dire straits that need help they are given food vouchers and can get food and clothes. Or if they are just plain in trouble and need food shipped to them, they get food. We give food to everyone, time and love is sent to the world. SS: You said that your granddaughter comes and cans with you, how often does she do that? AA: Just in the summertime, she will come over and when the fruits are on, which always starts with the strawberries and jams, to going and picking apricots. My daughters too, they come and they help pick the fruit. They will help me can sometimes. I help them, I go over to their homes and can, it is a family affair type thing so that we all survive and prepare for ourselves. So she comes and she learns, her mommy comes, we all work together in the kitchen and help one another. As we do this she learns, she is interested and she wants to know how to do it. It's a great family affair. SS: Where do you usually get your fruits, do you grow them all? AA: No, I can't grow them all. If I had the space I would. I grow a lot of them, I grow a lot of my peppers, and I grow my dill weed, herbs that I grow, some tomatoes, I grow some pickles but generally I have farmer friends or relatives that live in Riverdale or Plain City that are still farming. I go to those farmers that I know that they don't put a bunch of 16 chemicals on their foods. A lot of them are grown organically. I am able to go over there and purchase those things that I need to able to can. You get a product that has been shipped here and it isn't ripe all the way. Strawberries that I tried a couple of years ago, they were not ripe, they were horrible and I ended up throwing the whole batch out. You want to pick fruit ripe and at its prime, not when it is over the top, not when it is green, when it is right at its prime. In fact, I grow peach trees out in my back yard and I go out and I select each day. I touch the peach and see if it is just right or not. When I can get them I bring them in and can them in small batches so that they are in their prime. The people that I go to do the same thing. Their food is so good, you get the best quality, not quantity. 17