Familiar forms of canning jars were then called glass cans or fruit jars, probably because fruits were canned most often, and because the whole process was an extension of earlier preservation in heavy sugars. By the 1880s, American women, taking advantage of the lowering cost of sugar and the back-saving woodstove, had launched the annual summer routine of putting up the wealth of orchard fruit, along with garden vegetables and even meats.  

Click on Picture for larger view.
One quart glass fruit jar. "Whitall’s Patent June 18th 1861" molded on both jar and its glass lid. Iron screwdown closure on one-piece glass lid.

Instructions in period cookbooks directed that the food be precooked and packed hot in the heated jars or tin cans, then filled to overflowing with heated syrups or brines and sealed quickly—what we now call the open kettle method. A subsequent improvement suggested packing the raw food in jars and cooking it (open) in a hot water bath, and then, as before, filling with hot liquids and sealing. With this method the jars and the food were hot enough and probably sterile when packed, but the air trapped at the top was not, and food spoilage occasionally resulted. Mrs. Rorer, in Canning and Preserving (1887) recommended regular inspection of the jars for bubbling—a sure sign of trouble—and immediate opening, in such cases, to prevent bursting. The terminal hot water bath—a final processing of the cooked and sealed jars which killed off any contaminants—was not to be instituted for several years to come.

In fact, most of the food was wholesome enough, even if somewhat overcooked by the process. There were means to healthful canning. If the jar’s contents were high in acid there was less danger, and many fruits, pickles, and vinegared ketchups and chutneys stored safely. Other foods were protected by sugar syrups and brines, as sugar and salt were both flavorings and preservatives. Perhaps this accounts in part for the popularity of homemade ketchups and chili sauces. It was the low-acid, unseasoned vegetables and meats that fared less well, even to the extreme of sometimes causing serious illness, but these were a far smaller part of the repertoire.

Although today’s modern, quart-sized canning jars are a glut on the yard-sale and flea markets, they must have been treasured and reused annually in their early days. I confess to being somewhat confused about who bought them first, and in what quantities. Farm women with abundant home-grown food and the need to preserve it also typically lacked the cash flow needed for the jars. Possibly they maintained the traditional practices of salting, drying and root-cellar storage for a longer period.

Carrie Hubbard Davis, for example, living on rural Long Island in 1881, noted in her diary that her mother had brought her [only] "2 fruit jars." On the other hand, city women who functioned in the cash economy because of their husbands’ salaries bought both the jars and the food to can in them. It would almost seem that American small town women, whose home economy was based on access to funds, were in the best position to get at both. Their back-yard kitchen gardens and those of their farming cousins and communities were awash in seasonal inexpensive food for "putting up," and their economics allowed for the jars. Their diaries refer regularly to the "cans" and "jars" with which they provided for winter. In any case, the jar prices came down and women built up their stock of reusable containers, entrenching home canning in rural settings.

It would seem that before long, with the growth of more elaborate marketing (groceries and chain stores), an increasing sector of American women turned away from the work of canning to the convenience of inexpensive commercial tinned staples. But national events provided the impetus for renewed interest in home canning. During World War I, for example, the government urged families to plant "victory gardens" and to can their surplus for later use, thereby allowing the re-distribution of commercial supplies to the army. Throughout the nation, home economists now gave classes in home canning to patriotic homemakers (suggesting that the process had not been in general use everywhere). Likewise, during the depression in the 1930s, land grant colleges promoted improved canning methods and nutrition in their new publications and home demonstration classes. World War II followed suit.

During the 1960s and 1970s young women immersed in the back-to- the-land movement rediscovered home canning, now facing a serious competitor in quantity freezing. I would guess that the next generations of women are far too busy working out of the home, and are, in many cases, far too removed from domesticity to find home canning either interesting or a valuable use of time.

And, in fact, by today’s standards of fresh and frozen produce, home-canned products do not often rate as high as they once did. Even considering their convenience and clear economy, assuming access to inexpensive local produce, those old-fashioned salads and desserts based on canned fruit have long since gone out of fashion.

Although I continue to put up small amounts of jams and jellies, the canning side of my kitchen has all but shut down. I would love to get rid of several dozen no-longer-used quart jars but I cannot bear to throw them away. Although recycling is a possibility, I hate to see them lost as canning equipment. I simply don’t want to see the tradition go. As home gardening becomes one of our nation’s favorite pastimes, and as organic gardening is on the rise, perhaps there is still a future for homemade tomato and chili sauces, gleaming on a pantry shelf, waiting for winter.

Let me then offer you the original recipe for chili sauce by Gesine Lemke, who wrote and ran cooking schools in Brooklyn and Manhattan, New York City, 100 years ago. The high acid content (both tomatoes and vinegar), sugars and spices make this one of the safe home-canning products. 

Although earlier cooks did not always process their sterilized jars after filling, you may wish to use a terminal hot-water bath.

This requires that you submerge the hot filled and sealed jars in boiling water (in a large canning kettle with a rack) for five minutes, according to the basic rules by Hertzberg, Vaughn, and Greene in their classic Putting Food By. Or you may wish to invest in the large pressure cooker-canners that were so popular after World War II.

The accompanying recipe for chili sauce offers a remedy to the problem of the too-abundant tomato at summer’s end, and has the benefit of using both ripe and unripe fruit together. Chili sauce may be used in any number of ways—as a relish accompanying meat, as an addition to the usual meat-and-beans chili, or mixed with mayonnaise as an interesting salad dressing. Feel free to play with the seasonings: for example, try grating in some fresh ginger to taste.

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