Our Personal Food Bank: Surviving Long, Cold, Country Winters

Reader Contribution by Arkansas Girl
Published on February 15, 2013
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Our survival actually started in the Summer (when the first fruits were ripe enough to pick) and ended in late Autumn. Now, for the life of me, I can’t remember which vegetables were harvested in the spring, but it seems that Grandma picked something from her garden the year round, though she may not have. It’s been so long ago, that I hardly remember, so for you farmers and harvesters who know the fruits, veggies, and nuts seasons, please forgive me if I put the sweet potatoes where the collard greens are suppose to go or the pecans where the peanuts are suppose to go.

At any rate, here’s the way I remember it. My Grandmother always had a garden – and a fine one at that. She was always tending her little “green babies” and bringing in a bundle or basket of something delectable from her tiny field. I ate a lot of fresh fruits and vegetables, but in the winter (when we couldn’t get much fresh fruit), we’d go in the back room (our personal cellar) or make a trip to Grandmother’s to ravage her smokehouse. Now, you “city slickers” may not know what a smokehouse is. It’s certainly not a place where one goes to smoke; rather it’s that’s small one-room house a few feet away from the main house that held all the “canned” preserved goods that were essential to our survival throughout winter.
Inside that dark room hang meats and on the shelves sat jars of every kind of fruit, vegetable or meats that had been gathered in for winter eating. Sometimes, we’d help a neighbor harvest his sweet potatoes, but normally, our winter stash came from Grandma‘ Smokehouse.
I could never figure out how anyone could “can” meat in a jar, but my Grandmother had jars of canned chicken and pork, and I’m sure other industrious families did too. It’s also amazing that none of the food ever spoiled. As a child, I was just sure that as long as those jars had sat on those shelves that surely the food would be rotten when we opened them, but surprise! It wasn’t, and the best part is that everything we opened ended up making a delicious addition to whatever else we had on the menu.
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