Oral History Program Barbra Braeden Interviewed by Shanna Richelle Seiler 13 February 2005 i Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah Barbra Braeden Interviewed by Shanna Richelle Seiler 13 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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It is recommended that this oral history be cited as follows: Braeden, Barbra, an oral history by Shanna Richelle Seiler, 13 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 Barbra Braeden. The interview was conducted on February 13, 2005, by Shanna Richelle Seiler. Braeden discusses her experience with canning and canned goods. SS: This is Shanna Seiler today is February 13, 2005 I am here with Barbra Braeden. How long have you lived in Utah? BB: Um, let’s see, we moved here in 1978 so that would be 27 years. SS: And you moved here with your husband? BB: Yeah. SS: Was there a specific reason? BB: We moved here for a job opportunity, we were going to start a restaurant, that didn’t end up materializing. But we ended up opening up a golf shoppe which we owned for a year so we moved out here through friends of ours that we met in Idaho Falls, and we were going to partner with them in a business. SS: Is this where you guys have lived with your children, they were born here? BB: Yes. SS: How many kids do you have? BB: We have two boys, one was born in 1980 and one was born in 1983. SS: I’m guessing 1980 is Michelle’s husband. BB: Yeah. 1 SS: Okay, um, tell me when you learned to make jam. BB: One of the homes that we lived in was a new housing development, so it was young families with very young children. Everyone on the block was about my age as far as the women. A real good friend of mine that lived right next door has lived her all her life an she was really very industrious kind of a gale and she had this value of not wasting anything and she would tell me “Oh I went over to my moms house today and I picked a bunch of peaches and I’m going to can them.” So I would go over and I would watch her. It was something new to me and she would come home with apricots and cherries and all throughout the season I would watch her can these different things and I would often times go over and besides watching her I would get involved. So she taught me how to can and I think I probably started out with jams, helping her with jams and then I would do my own and then I ended up dong fruits, canning fruits. Making pickles, she taught me how to do those to. SS: The first time that you made jam with her tell me about that. BB: Well it was fun, she of course um, had it all down to a very pat system how she did it and I would help her maybe peel the fruit. You know or pit the cherries so I worked along side her in the kitchen and she told me what to do and I would do it. We had a lot of fun. Lots of fun. SS: Are there other people that would help or just you? BB: Just she and I, yeah, I mean she could certainly do it on her own but I was just there to chat with her while she worked to state with, yeah it was fun. SS: Did you learn mostly through doing it or did she write things down for you? 2 BB: I learned through doing it. You know, I saw the equipment that was needed I think at first I probably borrowed her, like her hot water bath and things. You know, the first couple of times to see it I liked it enough to invest in t but um, so yeah I learned by doing. I remember when we made pickles. I still have her recipes for a couple of different kind of cross cut pickles and um, I think a few of my jam recipes are also hers. SS: How long have you been doing this? BB: Lets see, I have been canning since um, probably 1979 or 89. So that’s about 25-26 years. SS: And you enjoy doing it? BB: I do. SS: Do you continue to do it to today? BB: I do. I think there was a period where I did more of it when we were a family of four. Now it is just Dave and I, but you know um, so I don’t do the quantity that I used to. But there are some favorites. We grow beets, so I will do the beets. Pickles I do about every three years because we just don’t go through that many. Jam I usually do peach jam that I do every year and I bought three rhubarb plants but there just new so I didn’t get very much. Actually last year I wanted rhubarb jam really bad so I picked I think 2 pounds, and my poor three little plants, I brought my scale out there and after two pounds I had picked ever stock of those three little plants. I hope they come up this year so I did make a batch of rhubarb and um then I had to buy peaches because out peach tree died. I actually bought a peach tree after having learned to pick um from my own tree. 3 SS: Where did buy the peaches from? BB: Um, Farmers Market. SS: Did ya? BB: Down in Salt Lake in Liberty Park. SS: Do you remember who you bought them from? BB: It was a farmer, I don’t know his name. I like going down there in the summer because they have wonderful fresh produce. It wasn’t a big farm or big operation just a small farm. SS: Have you ever been out to the fruit way? BB: Yes. SS: Do you ever get fruit from there? BB: I don’t, you know, a girlfriend of mine likes to drive up every fall with her husband and they buy things but usually we are just too busy. The four of us were going to come up and make a day of it but we didn’t so I don’t come up I haven’t yet. SS: I love it up there. BB: Yeah it’s pretty isn’t it, they do have nice produce. SS: I interviewed Ralph Neilson who owns Nielson’s produce and he sent me home with so much fruit that I had to can it. Raspberries and strawberries and anything around; he sent me home with it. SS: How many cans of fruit do you usually put up in a year? 4 BB: Let’s see, um, I probably do, this year zero. SS: How many cans of jam this year? BB: Probably 30 pints. SS: In the pint jars or the half pint jars? BB: Mostly the pint jars. I have some little half pints maybe I only did about may be 8 in the little half pints I give some to Scott and Michelle and some to Derick. Especially pickles, I make that much and they usually take them to. But I give a lot to friends. SS: Do you remember why you started doing it? BB: I like the process, I love working in the kitchen. I like the process of picking the fruit, cleaning it um, preparing it canning it and giving it to people and I love the taste too. SS: Is that why you continue to do it? BB: I think for those reasons, yeah. SS: I’ve heard people tell me that it is just because they like the way it looks to have their pantry full of bottled foods. BB: Yeah, well my pantry I don’t see, it’s downstairs and really it’s just a storage room so I go down there if I need another jar but I don’t see it on a daily basis, um, yeah. But there is something to saying I made this because, ya know, that’s kinda a satisfying feeling. SS: One lady that I interviewed told me that she leaves them on her counter for a couple of days just to look at them because she made so many of them and she is so proud of them. 5 BB: Yeah, I do that too. It is kinda nice to line them up, ya know because they are very pretty. And two, because I like to check, usually the next day, I’ll check the seal so they usually sit on the counter for a day until I, and usually by the next day after I’ve checked the seals I will wash the jars cause sometimes, we’ve got hard water and sometimes the jars get kinda a chalky white on the outside. So I scrub them all down and put the labels on and then store them usually in the box that I got them in. Store them out of site so. SS: Have you ever had any real problems with canned food, fruits or jams or anything? BB: Well I have never had anything explode as far as, uh, do you mean the process of actually canning itself. No, um, well I’ll tell ya one of the only problems is that there are some neighbors of ours that have some cherry trees. So one time I picked cherries, they were sour cherries and there were little white worms in them. So that wasn’t so good. SS: Did you can them and then find out there were worms in them? BB: No I started cleaning them and then realized that they hadn’t sprayed their trees. SS: They like those cherry trees. BB: So that was disappointing, but… SS: And you planted a peach tree for this process? BB: Yeah. SS: How long did you have your peach tree for? 6 BB: Um, I think we probably had it ten years, and then the peach boars. It kinda struggled, but the peaches were wonderful, and, um, but we had a problem with peach boars so for about three years we nursed the tree with the nurseries help. But it slowly branch by branch it dies and then it blew over in a wind storm. We’ve got an apricot tree last year that um, we didn’t actually get enough apricots to can, so, yeah, I have planted fruit trees with he desire to try to get fruit for, but our apricot trees are pretty small. SS: And where did you guys live before? BB: Well, um, originally in Minnesota. We went to college there and at the University of Minnesota. Then when Dave and I got married um, it was 1975. We moved to Omaha for a year and we lived in Idaho Falls for a year and we have lived here the rest of the time. SS: And all of the places that you have lived do you ever remember anyone doing this? BB: Yeah, canning, SS: Where at? BB: My mother did a little bit of canning back in Minnesota, um not much. I can remember he, I think she tired making dill pickles once but they weren’t very good. My grandmother made pickled beets and bread and butter pickles. I remember, I was pretty small, but I remember when she would pull the jars out of the fridge. I loved the little round mustard seeds in the bread and butter pickles, and the little sliced onions. I just thought that was such an exotic kind of a food. 7 SS: Do you remember when you lived in Minnesota, do you remember women your own age doing this. When you moved here what was your reaction to women in the neighborhood just did this, it was just part of their lives. BB: Yeah I, um, I just felt that um, I was impressed, especially with my neighbor Deidra that um, her philosophy that she didn’t want to waste anything. Because like I’d say she would go to her mom’s, she would go to different relatives that had whatever the produce was that was in season and they just picked and preserved it. That was just kinda a new philosophy for me to try to use everything to the best of my ability. SS: Did you think it was kinda odd that she spent so much time doing this or was it kinda a new thing? BB: No she was a very organized; she had a lot of energy. She accomplished a lot each day and so it wasn’t odd at all that she would spend three hours, four hours of the day each day canning something. Actually it was kind of an incentive for me to maybe use my time a little better. But, um, no I thought it was a good use of time. Pat of her thing with the preserving was um, to do it for food storage. I think she had a different purpose and I think the quantities that she would put up were a whole lot different then me. The only reason that I was doing it was as condiments and as gifts for people and just for our small family of four. My purpose was different then hers. SS: If you were living in Minnesota and you were to hear one of your girlfriends sort of say, ya know, yesterday I was canning and me and so and so were canning, how would you have felt about that? Would you think that was kinda of different or ya know? 8 BB: You mean when I was at the age I was when I lived back there. See when I lived back there it was high school age and going through college and that was the last thing we were thinking was canning so. I suppose if a friend said that, yeah I would have just though, that’s interesting. But I wouldn’t have been interested at the time. I didn’t have the money and I didn’t have the interest to um, invest in, not that it is a big investment. You know I was mobile I was there all by my self so I really didn’t have a permanent place to live and I was in college I was kinda moving around a lot. I needed to be light and I certainly wouldn’t have hauled around jars of jam or anything back then so. It never occurred to me to do that, so. SS: It’s common here even in high school or in junior high age to say oh me and my mother were canning on Saturday. And it doesn’t catch any of us off guard that what you were canning and people just do it, its normal. That’s how we learned to it is my grandmother taught my mother, my mother taught me and I’m going to teach my children so that’s why I ask that. BB: No, that wasn’t something that my mother ever pulled me aside and said hey do you want to help me can. I can remember going picking strawberries with her. We had big strawberry patches and raspberry patches, but, um, I’d go pick but we never preserved them we just picked them to eat I guess. SS: Have you ever made frozen jams or do you always do the canned jams? BB: Um, I’ve never made frozen jam and the reason is that I don’t have the freezer space. Um, I’ve tasted it and I think it tastes okay. Actually I kinda like the process of, um, you know cooking over the hot stove; it’s an accomplishment. 9 SS: Have you ever had your boys help you do this or your husband or anyone else in your family? BB: Yes, um, my, with cherries, I usually set the cherry pitter up and when the kids were younger they would pit the cherries. They would work that machine. Sometimes I have had them help it goes a lot quicker when I do have help but sometimes I get a system down and I know that it takes ten minutes for this to cook and while that is in the water bath cooking I can be preparing the next batch or something. So I kinda have a little routine going but I always welcome help but they are just not around much. SS: Did you ever teach them the process? BB: I don’t believe they have ever asked me if I would teach them. But I know my younger son has sent he whole process, he could probably do it if he. I never purposely said today I’m going to teach you. SS: Have you ever had anyone with you, another female that helps you do it? BB: I don’t think so. SS: Have you ever used the community cannery? BB: But I’ve got a girlfriend. I just had lunch with her last Monday, and she told me hat she goes down to the canning center and she said um, the did a bunch of tomatoes and stuff so she’s decided to sell all of her canning jars and all that and just use that facility rather then doing it all in her home. It’s kinda quicker and it’s not as much mess and she can just get the process all done. She really like that and as a matter of fact she like that all much that she is getting rid of all of her personal equipment and he is just going to do it down there. 10 SS: Do you know how much it cost her to do that? BB: I think that this one is church owned. I think it probably costs her something. I think that she takes things home but I think some of it I suppose is for the welfare food supply. I believe she gets to take some so I imagine there is a cost. SS: Can you think of anything that you can tell me about this that would interest me or that? BB: Well I think my sister in law who lives in the Denver area; well over the years I’ve brought jars of jam and things to her just for little gifts for her when we go visit. This summer she made jam for the first time and that was kinda fun because I believe that I was an influence. She got some really good fruit from a farmers market over there and called me and said guess what I’m making jam, ya know, she made about 4 or 5 different kinds, she was just thrilled. SS: Do you think you will continue to do this. To make jam and canned fruits? BB: I think so, especially the jams. I have a favorite recipe that I like for peach jam, its got orange concentrate and coconut in it. It’s called tropical peach conserve, it’s really good. So I think I will, um, and, um, you didn’t ask me about the process I use. SS: No I didn’t. BB: Well because there is the steamer method and I don’t use that one. I use the hot water bath. I think the steamer method would be kinda interesting because as I get older that water bath is kinda heavy. Just starting that great big hot tub of water, when I’m done, um, I think in the future might become a little more cumbersome. I think the steamer method might me something I might change to. SS: What kind of equipment do you need to do that? 11 BB: Well um, it’s um, it’s a little shallow bath about like this, and then there is a little rack so that the bottles are um of the bottom. And then there is a big lid and so it steams, the steaming method, the heat from the steaming is the process rather then the boiling water. There is something to. I have heard that the steaming method doesn’t work so well at this altitude. We are up about 4500 feet and I know that the home extension office of Salt Lake County Extension has um charts, and I think it is very important using the steaming method to make sure the process and time is adequate. I mean I don’t do tomatoes and I know that they are kinda a tricky thing. So when I do change over I would have to learn some new processes and times to make sure that I am making a safe product. SS: I have always boiled them, but I think my mom and steamed um. She uses the pressure cooker but it is the same idea, it is the same idea. There is a little rack that they sit in. BB: They are really hefty those kettles. SS: Oh there huge, and hard to store. BB: I haven’t done pressure cooking for preserving; I have used it for other things. SS: Have you ever done juice? BB: No and stuff. We don’t have grapes; I suppose if we had grapes that I would do it. Deidra, my next door neighbor had grapes and I remember going over there and making the grape concentrate. So I helped her with that one day. She sent me home with a few jars that was really good. But I haven’t made that my self. I suppose if I had 12 my own produce I would do it. I think I have adopted that philosophy that it I’ve got it doesn’t waste it, just try to use it somehow. SS: And you’ve gotten it for this purpose too? BB: Yeah. SS: What kind of sugars do you use for your jam? BB: You know just a couple of years a go I really didn’t care I would just buy the cheapest. A girlfriend of mine that lives up in Boise, I was up there visiting her and she said she used to work in a beet sugar factory up there and she told me how caustic the smoke was that came out of this beet factory and how they stunk, they just kinda smelled when they came off of work and stuff. The process that they use to get sugar out of beets is awful and she said she only uses pure cane sugar so a couple years ago I switches so I could support the can sugar farmers. I don’t know, I think it makes a difference. SS: Do you know brand of sugar is a beet sugar BB: Most of the cheaper ones. The only one that is a pure is the C&H sugar, ya know, from Hawaii I guess, right. Probably the rest of them are beet sugar. SS: There used to be a beet dump in Kaysville where used to do beet sugar. And I asked some one what kind of sugar they use to do this. I said do you use sugar made out of beets, and they said isn’t that the only kind of sugar there is. BB: Are you originally from here then? SS: Yeah. BB: Up until a couple years ago we would just get a bargain sugar 13 SS: I wonder if there is a taste difference BB: I don’t know; I would think there is, what she was telling me was, is that the chemical process that hey used to get the beet sugar sounded like it was a pretty caustic process so I was thinking um, I don’t know if the sugar is as good as cane sugar. SS: Have you ever made relish? BB: What did you make it out of? SS: You know, I think zucchini and red pepper; it was probably a recipe that Deidra gave me. It seemed to me it had mustard in it. Not mustard seeds but it was yellow and it wasn’t a big hit. Ya know the other thing I have noticed is that I’m trying to gage how much to make each year as far as jam goes because I don’t know what the longevity is. It has been sitting downstairs in my boxes and I look at it an on the top it’s gotten a little brown so I will dump the. This year I dumped about maybe 18 pint of bread and butter pickles because they were about 3-4 years old and make something else and I figured nobody is going to want them. I have a magic marker date on them and they are too old. I wasn’t sure how safe they would be. I’m either not giving them away or we are just not eating enough of it so I’m trying to gage how much to do. It is kinda a sad thing to dump stuff out. SS: Do you reuse your jars? BB: Yeah, my neighbor told me to look on the bottom of the jars, like the mayonnaise jars and if it has a little ‘k’ that some of those are good to use for canning. Back in those days I would look for those kinds of jars. I don’t do so much in quarts anymore so I don’t use a lot of those. I have never bought them used I have always bought new 14 ones. People don’t return them when they use the jam. One thing that I like to do to is, I have never entered anything in the fair but I like going to the county fair in salt lake and I like to go in the home etc. building where they are showing the fruit that they made and the vegetables. I always think that it is so pretty to see how they have done string beans; all of the fruit is very uniform. SO when I do bread and butter pickles the look to me is very important. I um, try to make a pretty looking product. We have bought from places that we have been visiting. We were in Nantucket and there was a little far house out on a hill and out at the end of the drive there was little half pints of different kinds of jam. We bought them and we went up to the house to pay for them. I looked in the house and thought oh wow, I hope this kitchen is kinda clean cause it was this little old guy and it was kinda a dark house and but we ate the jam anyway. It isn’t a science it is more of an art and I’m pretty exacting as far as measuring my sugar level and timing it just right. I think I ended up buying a food processor because of canning. At the very beginning I would just slice it and my friend had a food processor and when she bought a new one she sold me hers very cheap. I never probably would have bought one if I hadn’t have been canning. 15