PRESERVING IN THE PAST

THE MAJESTIC ~ THE RANGE WITH THE REPUTATION

My husband and I live in the house where I grew up, and the old Majestic wood range my Mom cooked and canned on is still in kitchen, providing for us, warmth and good food, baked and simmered all winter long. This was my Mom's stove, and she used it faithfully everyday when I was a child. I can remember her canning on this in the summer, fans going, hotter than heck, cooking greenbeans in a waterbath canner for 2 1/2 hours.

She baked pies, cakes, fried chicken, pork chops, venison, and vegies and potatoes, or what ever was on the menu for the night. She canned on this old stove for years, until she bought a small apartment sized electric stove. Dad installed it right beside the Majestic. She then moved the summer canning activities to the modern era of electricity! She never bought a pressure cooker to can in, but always relied on the old method of waterbath and open kettle. We all lived through it, and ate well because of it, but now it is not acceptable to preserve many foods with those methods.

~

I have a lot of respect for the way our Moms, Grandmas, and Aunties strived to put up the food for their families, working in a sweltering kitchen for hours to put the treasures of jams, jellies, tomatoes, green beans and pickles on the pantry shelves for winter. It was a labor of love, dedication to family, and an ever mindful eye to thrifty living.

There are lessons to be learned from the ways our mothers ran a household. There was no excess to their lifestyles, needs were met before wants were granted and you made do or did without. My life has been crafted by my Mother and the women I was closest to when I was growing up. Their influence runs deep in my veins and I have worked to pass this on to my daughter. And as she so eloquently puts it... sometimes the old ways are best...