Dog Trot House Narrative; Food Preservation; Barre, Miller

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[[Speaker#1]] On your left, ah this house ah from doing research ah the best I can come up with, is about 100 years old.

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It had the breezeway originally built like this house here but it has since been closed in, with a glass door on the front, a wall in the back, and has been turned into a living room area, and a TV room. Ah that, is about all that I can think of right now, ah without just keeping going and taking up all these fellas times, I wouldn't want to steal Ellen's thunder here and I know he's got a lot to tell you but possibly one other thing that I mentioned earlier was plumbing that we did not have ah

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but we had to take a bath. And as I mentioned before the people were real strict there about your cleanliness, your hygiene. We get us a tub like Mrs. Florida mentioned over here that she washed in and we get out at lunchtime and draw us up a tub of water out of the well and set it out in the yard in the hot sun and let it be warming

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and set that tub up on the back porch ah after dark since we didn't have electricity you didn't have close neighbors. Maybe your closest neighbor was a half a mile you didn't have to worry about anyone seeing you.

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Ah so you get out on the back porch and ah take your bath in this washtub and ah if you never tried that you ought to just try it sometime. It's real fun trying to get an allover bath in a 2-foot diameter washtub that can be real interesting sometimes getting all over bath. But the tradition goes there you did that on Saturday you had your Saturday bath but that was not so, so you had to do it every day or every night. Ah Mr. Moore if you have other questions.

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Mr. Moore: I can't believe you are out of breath. Um, [laughter] I ah [laughter] thank you we've been talking about the dog trot house as a traditional form of architecture in South-Central Georgia and these things of course do exist on the landscape today. There aren't as many as they used to be. They come in two basic varieties, one is an early variety made of logs, pine logs, put it together as carefully as possible and they sometimes go up to a story and a half but usually it's one story like this and ah the other type is to have a frame house like the one you see behind you.

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Mr. Moore: One of the people in our world today who is responsible for holding onto these old buildings is Alan Sligh, who lives up by Columbus, Georgia,

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and as a young man he's been, he's taken on his responsibility of helping people restore,

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or move, or put back together or save and preserve uh traditional forms of houses.

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Uh Alan, how did you happen to get into this, uh, form of work and how do you feel about it?

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Alan Sligh: Uh, well I got interested in it about 5 years ago and went to a log building school

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in, uh, Washington State that taught the rigging and techniques of old style log buildings.

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Mr. Moore: And what do you, how do you make your living today? How do you carry this on?

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Alan Sligh: Uh, I'm uh what they call a timber framer, which is working with uh

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logs and wooden structures similar to this.

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Mr. Moore: Could you describe for these folks, just a few minutes, kind of a typical job, uh,

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if somebody says if I have an old log building, I'd like to have you uh move and retro-fit for modern living?

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Is that sort of what you get to do?

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Alan Sligh: Uh yeah.

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The uh, the dog-trot house started as a log structure and uh,

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the South about 1828, when the, the uh Indians went on the Tears of Trail

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they started building these houses and they built uh

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one section first and then add the dog-trot in another room later on.

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And uh, the uh, uh, like I say, some of them were one-story and some of them were a story and a half,

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but the older ones were about the same size as this house.

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Mr. Moore: Uh, it seems to me that I remember uh, talking a little about the height of the floor off the ground.

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The distance between the uh, the sills and the ground is about what, like 20 inches or so, or 18?

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Alan Sligh: Yeah, well, the standard, the standard, is 18 inches.

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Mr. Moore: And why is that? Why is--

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Alan Sligh: Well they believe that a termite couldn't climb but 18 inches.

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Mr. Moore: Couldn't climb but 18 inches, that keeps them down [laughter],

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and of course you'll have the summer hot weather effect of the breeze coming under the house and keeping the house cool.

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We've talked a lot about dog-trot houses in summer and how efficient they are in hot weather and humid weather,

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but the problem in the winter is something else.

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Davney [Dabney Crosby], I'm gonna call you back for just a little bit to tell that wonderful story about your wife,

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uh, and her experience with uh cool weather on your honeymoon. You want to tell me about that?

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Davney: [Dabney Crosby] Uh very well Mr. Moore, uh, that's an experience in my life I'll never forget.

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I lived in a, this was not a typical dog-trot house, but it had a shed room on it, which uh

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you can see the framework if you'll check the house on the uh far corner over your left shoulder, what we called a shed room.

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Okay, this thing uh didn't have an over-head ceiling, you had exposed, uh, beams with just a metal roof on top of this

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and it was real cold back there and it happened to be that we had a real cold winter

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that uh, was extremely cold for our part of the country, and uh not having any central heat uh,

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within this house, uh I went and got my wife and uh, well of course,

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first she chased me around there for a year or two there, then finally she caught me.

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I chased her rather, and finally she caught me, so I just took her home with me there temporarily

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and lived with my parents 'til we could kind of get out on our own.

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But she was uh, she was a little better off financially than I was and she lived in a better house,

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and she wasn't used to living like I was in the type of house I was living in.

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Uh, the flooring in the room uh, I guess it had cracks about this wide in it. You could look underneath

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and see the ground, you know if uh in the daytime you could look through.

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So anyway, we stayed out a couple of nights on our honeymoon

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and when we returned home uh to bring her into my home there, it happened to be about 18 to 20 degrees,

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so the temperature that night on the outside, and it, I think it was about 12 on the inside of the house.

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It was usually colder on the inside, I think, it was on the outside seeming to be.

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Since we did not have central heat, we did not have electricity, we didn't have electric blankets,

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so hey we've gotta keep warm see, and uh I said well, uh this being our honeymoon and all that shouldn't be any problem.

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So uh, mother was looking after us real closely, she put uh 4 quilts, these patch-work quilts I'm sure most of you have seen.

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Mrs. Coffee over there is familiar with those.

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Uh, some of them are pretty thick there, maybe about an inch thick. Uh, I said well surely that'll keep us warm tonight, you know.

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And about 15 minutes I hollered for my mother and she brought in 3 more and put on top of us.

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So we wound up with 7 quilts on our first night in our home uh to attempt to keep warm and we kept warm

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but the next morning, when we waked up, my wife, she yelled for help!

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"What am I gonna...". I say, "What's in the world is wrong with you, girl?"

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She says, "I can't get out of bed!"

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I say, "Well, what's the problem, you know? You're not helpless or something."

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She said, "I've laid under all this cover, under all this weight, until I cannot move anymore. I just need some help."

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So, naturally, I proceeded to take the cover off and get her limbered up and get her out of bed to where she could get on with her daily duties.

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Mr. Moore: So obviously we got some, some idiosyncratic factors here in this house. They are particularly good for hot humid weather. They're not particularly good for cold weather. I have the feeling that we have enough technology in front of us today to perhaps fit this type house with devices and means to make it suitable for winter weather without actually changing the basic traditional form.

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We're going to turn this program over now to music pretty soon. Nick, about 15 minutes or so?

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Nick: More narrative.
Mr. Moore: More narrative? You want more narrative?
Nick: No no. It's gonna be canners.

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Mr. Moore: Ok. So we're going to sign off. We're going to have one more question from the audience.
Female voice: [[unintelligible]] Why do they call it a salt box?

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Mr. Moore: Why do they call it a salt box house? You mean the New England type house?
Female voice: Yeah yeah.

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Mr. Moore: Well there is, there's a container, a salt container which was kept in kitchens traditionally with a slanted lid on it which looks like and that's a salt box and so the slanted roof is the way its particularly slanted looks like a salt box. Yeah.
Female voice: [[inaudible]]

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Mr. Moore: Any other questions? Well thank you all for listening and thanks to our participants for answering all those questions.

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[[silence]]

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J. L. Harris: Good Afternoon and welcome to our narrative session in the food preservation and community activities section.

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Today we are going to talk about home preservation of food and particularly canning with two ladies who are really experts at that kind of activity. Martha Barrs, sitting right next to me, and Peggy Miller over on my right, far right.

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Both of these women do many things very well, but they are particularly recognized in their communities for their canning skills.

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They can many foods and they can them very well. Canning has not really received, I think, the attention that it deserves.

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Home processed foods are wonderful to have in our home storage area. They are not only economical to make but they are also really good to eat.

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They look good when they're properly packed and, and water, the proper amount of water, added to them.

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In addition they can reflect regional food preferences and I think that's partly what we are going to talk about today.

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The unusual foods that these ladies might can--

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J. L. Harris: From their South Georgia area, things that might not be familiar to the rest of us like fig preserves, or Vidalia onions, or potatoes and beans, things that perhaps we and other areas do not can so often. So that's sorta what we're gonna to talk about a little bit today. First of all, can you tell me how and when both of you started doing some canning?

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Martha Barrs: I have been canning all my life. My mother and my grandmother processed most of our home canned food for us. I am a child of ten children and as of today we are still all alive and we still all of us, the ten children, their families, do most of their home canning.
J. L. Harris: [Jimmie Lee Harris] Is that right?

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Peggy Miller: And ugh I'm from a family of five, which there is four of us, and ugh [pause] we have started, when we were children, to preserve everything that we can for the winner and things [pause] most unusual, we learned how to can. We're ugh different things that were out of season, well we had for the winner and, which were in season, we canned them. And we had ugh five, the two girls always canned but the boys got out and gathered the food for us.

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J.L. Harris: Did you raise your own fruits and vegetables?
Peggy Miller: Yes. [[overlapping]]
J. L. Harris: Did you raise your own garden?

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Peggy Miller: Yes we had our own chickens, we had our own vegetables, we had our own fruit gardens. We had peaches, plums, and we had wild grapes when they were in season, there is a lot of wild food that we'd go out and gather. And we had the ugh turnips, we canned the roots as well as the tops, which up in the north I found out you just have the roots and you throw away the tops, and the same...

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Peggy Miller: "Can them for later on and you do the pressure cooker, we didn't have no pressure fcooker, we had the water bath."

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Peggy Miller: "And the water bath is a big, galvanized tub. And out in the yard they put it under the wood and, uh, raise it with bricks and that- we'd can them out there in the jars in the water like that."

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Peggy Miller: "Now that's the way our grandmothers taught my mother and then mother taught us and then pressure cookers come along and [[left it lighten the load from us??]]."

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Female Interviewer: "So when did you get a pressure cooker? When did start canning with pressure cookers?"

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Peggy Miller: "The first one was in, uh, 42', it was after the war. And my husband, when he came home from the war, he brought me a pressure cooker."

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Female Interviewer: "Mmm. Mhhm."

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Peggy Miller: "And that's when we started. And I, must admit, I was scared of that."

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Female Interviewer: "Oh is that right?"
Peggy Miller: "Yes"
Female Interviewer: "You thought it was gonna blow up?"

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Peggy Miller: "I certainly was! And we gathered lot of the friends in to see that pressure cooker cause-"

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Female Interviewer: "It was a sight to see is it?"
Peggy Miller: "Yes it was"

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Peggy Miller: "And that was in Jacksonville and then we moved to Moultrie after that."

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Female Interviewer: "Mhm."
Martha Barrs: "And I too received my first one in 1942."
Female Interviewer: "Is that right?"

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Martha Barrs: "And as of today I'm still using it."
Female Interviewer: "The same one that you got then?"
Martha Barrs: "The same one I got in 1942."

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Female Interviewer: "I guess that's a testimony to the fact that they do hold up, is that right?"

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Martha Barrs: "They do hold up if you take care of 'em."

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Female Interviewer: "Now before you got your pressure canner did you also, uh, use the open kettle method and, and can outside?"

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Martha Barrs: "I canned outside just as Mrs. Miller has stated that she did. That's the way my mother taught me to do and that's the way I did. And then, like I said, when ever we got the pressure cooker then we switched over to it."

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Martha Barrs: "I've always enjoyed the pressure cooker cooking but still, at sometimes, I still do a lot of hot water bath cooking too."

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Female Interviewer: "Oh you do? Now why would choose to use the open kettle method sometimes, or the hot water bath?"

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Martha Barrs: "Well, as sometimes it's according to what you're preserving."

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Female Interviewer: "Mhm."

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Martha Barrs: "If you have a few jars to process in a hot water bath, like a pint jar, and my cooker calls for 7 quart pressure cooker, then I may just set them over in a hot water bath and do 'em on the stove while I'm fixing supper or something like that other ways I go back to the pressure cooker."

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Female Interviewer: "So if you just have a little amount to do, then you just-"

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J. L. Harris: [Jimmie Lee Harris[ The water-bath,-- [[cross talk]]
Martha Barrs: ...the hot water bath because it can be done by the time you get your supper done, your kitchen cleaned up, and therefore you don't have to switch from one to another.

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J. L. Harris: But aren't there certain foods you should only can in a pressure canner? That you shouldn't do in the open kettle method?

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Martha Barrs: Yes, there's a lotta foods that you not supposed to can in the hot water method. If you're puttin' up some kinda relishes and some kind of like bell peppers, hot peppers, things like that you're supposed to cook them on the top and in hot water.
J. L. Harris: Mmm hmm. [[affirmative]]

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Martha Barrs: Most of the pressure cookers goes back to your beans, your peas, your greens, things like that that can be cooked in hot water, I mean, in the pressure cooker
J. L. Harris: That need to be cooked in --

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Martha Barrs: That need to be cooked under pressure. And be sure you cook them at the same length of time that they're specified cause you've got to get out all of the air out of 'em and preserve 'em or they will spoil.

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J. L. Harris: Mmm hmm. [[affirmative]] And that's one thing you want to avoid when you're canning, don't you? Things spoiling.
Martha Barrs: Mmm hmm. [[affirmative]]

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Peggy Miller: That's right and another thing, you should always wipe the top of your jars before you seal them. That's the most important thing. That's where a lot of people make a mistake. Don't you agree, Martha?

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Martha Barrs: I do, and a lot of times what I do, is if you will take your jars out of your pressure cooker, if you would turn them upside down, and let them stay that way for about five minutes, then that would put the heat and the pressure of the jar on that rubber seal, then when you turn them back over then they seal better.

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A lot of the jars does not stay, you cannot tighten them down tight enough that there's enough heat that will pull them back down. So what you need to do is to turn them down for about five minutes and then turn them back over.
J. L. Harris: Mmm Hmm. [[affirmative] Good, good tip.

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Peggy Miller: That's right. Now in the jellies it's different, and the preserves they're different. They do not need the water bath and they do not need the pressure. All they do is to cook on the stove at a certain length of time until it sheets from the spoon, is your jellies.

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And by sheeting it'll form, instead of the drops, it'll form just one layer of the jelly and drop all a sudden, and then you put them in your sterilized jars, you wash your jars and scald them and then put them in your oven, at a 300 degree oven or, if your oven is not hot enough, put it up to 325 and then take them out of that.

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Put em' u-

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Peggy Miller: ...towel and just put your jelly into the jars and then you boil in hot water, boiling hot water, you put your jar lids. Now there's two kinds of jar lids, and the new kind that's on the market has the porcelain on the lid and the seal around it.

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The rubber seal is a little larger. Before, it used to be about a third of an inch, I mean about a quarter of an inch, now it's a third of an inch, so it's about as thick as your finger around and they are the jar lids to get. If you're ever canning.
J. L. Harris: [Jimmie Lee Harris] [[overlapping]] Is that right? The one with the porcelain inside?

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Peggy Miller: That's right it's a white -- inside.
J. L. Harris: Oh, yeah. and they're just safer? or easier to use?
Peggy Miller: [[overlapping]] They're safer. They're safer to use than the aluminu- uh, the, it's not aluminum, it's tin, isn't it Martha?

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Martha Barrs: The, the tin tops will, eventually, in a little while, will, some of 'em will rust, especially if you're putting var- uh, foods with very much acid in 'em. In the jar, the lid will rust and therefore you're not supposed use the rusted lids or the rest of the product. So they ask you to buy the ones with the white porcelain lid tops.

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J. L. Harris: Now, you were talking a little bit about the kinds of jellies that you make, or you would show, describing for us the process of making jelly. What are some kinds of jellies that you make and use down in South Georgia that other people might not be so familiar with?

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Peggy Miller: Now one of the main jellies they do not, and it's mostly in Georgia, the southern part of Georgia, in swamp areas, lime swamp, and in Louisiana, South Louisiana; I found that out today. They do have 'em over there, and Alabama, the southern part, and it's in, grows on tall trees about six feet tall. They come from bushes on up, and it's only in the month of May that we have these. And these bushes are very thorny, so you can't climb 'em.

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J. L. Harris: Now, what bush is this again?
Peggy Miller: Mayhaw.
J. L. Harris: The Mayhaw.
Peggy Miller: [[overlapping]] It's M-a-y-h-a-w and that comes from an Indian...

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Peggy Miller: --means month of May and then swamps, sweet swamp.
J. L. Harris: [Jimmie Lee Harris] Ohhhh.
Peggy Miller: Uh it does. I didn't know that until one of the librarians there in Sylvester told me that.

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J. L. Harris: Uh-huh, so you go out and gather the Mayhaws?
Peggy Miller: Yes we do, and you have to wear boots, and then we go out and have a sifter, and then sift them out of the water, we shake the trees, the men do, the boys, and then we gather it with a sifter.

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J. L. Harris: Oh, so it's really, I mean, a real swamp, a real swampy area then.

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Peggy Miller: That's right and the apples are kinda bittersweet. They're real tarty but they're little, they're very small.

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J. L. Harris: Do you make anything else outta them besides the Mayhaw jelly?
Peggy Miller: No, that's all. And you can cook the jelly, I mean the Mayhaws about three times.

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J. L. Harris: Oh, you do.
Peggy Miller: You take a gallon, yes, of berries, and you can get about three-- uh you get six pints out of each cooking.

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J. L. Harris: And you call them berries or are they like little crab apples?
Peggy Miller: [[overlapping]] They're apples,they're crab-- but we call them berries.

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J. L. Harris: But you do call them berries, I see, I see.
Peggy Miller: Mayhaw berries. Uhh huh-

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J. L. Harris: What other kind? Any other kind of jelly you can think of? What about hot pepper jelly?

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Peggy Miller: Oh, now hot pepper jelly that's one of the southern, and I understand they have it up in South Carolina and some other places too. But I've never known it thus far and so we make that down there. Quite--

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J. L. Harris: And tell us how you make it. It's used as a relish. It's not really a jelly like Mayhaw jelly is.

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Peggy Miller: No, no this is uh kinda um hot jelly, it's a mild hot jelly. And it's with green peppers and banana peppers - that's the yellow long pepper - and hot peppers. And you use most of the green pepper, the bell pepper is what they call the green pepper, and then they use about 5 or 6 of the hot pepper and you have to take the seeds outta each one of these. If you don't it really will be hot, and you cook that and you put some Sure Jell or some kind of pectin--

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Peggy Miller: -- with fish or, any kind of meat, pork or uh beef, and sometimes they put it on cream cheese and crackers. It's delicious like that for just an appetizer.

00:22:07.000 --> 00:22:13.000
J. L. Harris: [Jimmie Lee Harris] Sounds Good.
Peggy Miller: Yes.
J. L. Harris: And you were mentioning blackberry jelly too, that's another favorite. Do you make that at all?

00:22:13.000 --> 00:22:24.000
Martha Barrs: Yeah, we make we make blackberry, strawberry. We make plum, apple, um fig preserves, all kinds of jellies and jams.

00:22:24.000 --> 00:22:40.000
J. L. Harris: Now, fig preserves are real popular when I was down there this summer, everybody's figs were in and they were making fig preserves, and the one that I found real interesting was the strawberry figs. Uh it's a uh flavor with strawberries or strawberry jell-o.

00:22:40.000 --> 00:23:03.000
Martha Barrs: Yes, we make that, but we chip up our figs and then, to make them taste like strawberries, we add our strawberry jell-o, and then when you get through you have strawberry fig preserves. Therefore, figs are cheaper than strawberries down home, so people are learning to use a fig more to get the use out of the fig.

00:23:03.000 --> 00:23:08.000
J. L. Harris: Ahh, ahh, I see, so it's in a sense a kind of a substitute for strawberry jelly.

00:23:08.000 --> 00:23:09.000
Martha Barrs: That's right.
J. L. Harris: Is that right, uh?

00:23:09.000 --> 00:23:17.000
Peggy Miller: You can also use the blackberry jell-o with the figs too. Have you done that Martha?

00:23:17.000 --> 00:23:23.000
Martha Barrs: Yeah, I've done that too, but seem like my family's--
Peggy Miller: Strawberries
Martha Barrs: Strawberry preserves is their favorite.

00:23:23.000 --> 00:23:30.000
J. L. Harris: Is that right?
Peggy Miller: Yeah, but it's just a certain season that figs are in and that is from June to July.

00:23:30.000 --> 00:23:35.000
J. L. Harris: So, you have to make...
Peggy Miller: There are certain seasons and that's why we have to prepare them at that time.

00:23:35.000 --> 00:23:37.000
J. L. Harris: Right, right
Peggy Miller: Yes.

00:23:37.000 --> 00:23:48.000
J. L. Harris: What about the various kinds of pickles and relishes that you might make? I know, again, I was interested in pickled okra that you had down there and pickled squash was getting popular and...

00:23:48.000 --> 00:24:05.000
Martha Barrs: Today I've been making the pickled okra and the hot pepper sauce. Yesterday I made some pear relish out of pears and we are making now, at the present, we are fixin' to make some tomato relish

00:24:05.000 --> 00:24:30.000
uh at the fair, but at home I can a lot of different kind of pickle: sweet pickle, dill pickle. I make a candied cinnamon pickle out of the old cucumbers that people ordinarily won't use and they're real delicious. I color 'em a bright red and I color some a bright green and that makes an attractive dish for Thanksgiving and Christmas.

00:24:30.000 --> 00:24:37.000
J. L. Harris: Oh, is that right? So you add artificial uh artificial color to them?
Martha Barrs: [[overlapping]] Artificial color to 'em and that makes a real attractive dish for Christmas.

00:24:37.000 --> 00:24:37.030
J. L. Harris: Ooh, that's interesting, well--

00:24:40.000 --> 00:24:46.000
J. L. Harris: -- and that canned goods also look pretty and they're also meant to be attractive.
Peggy Miller: That's right.

00:24:46.000 --> 00:25:06.000
Martha Barrs: To me all kind of vegetables are pretty at their natural color. That's the way they were God given to us and I'd rather have 'em at that way, but at times you can add these special things, these colors has nothing to do with taste. It's just eyesight taste.

00:25:06.000 --> 00:25:11.000
J. L. Harris: Just to make it, enhance its natural color a little bit.
Martha Barrs: [[overlapping]] Attractive to the eye. It has nothing to do with the taste.

00:25:11.000 --> 00:25:18.000
J. L. Harris: That's interesting.
Peggy Miller: To make it appetizing and that, yes.
J. L. Harris: So to tempt your appetite a little bit more? Even than it already does?

00:25:18.000 --> 00:25:30.000
Peggy Miller: Yes, that's right, uh-huh. Well, today we're making watermelon rind preserves and tomorrow we'll make the watermelon rind, uh, pickle.

00:25:30.000 --> 00:25:37.000
J. L. Harris: Ah, so today you're making the preserves. So how, now how is the preserves, how will that be different than the pickle that you'll be making?

00:25:37.000 --> 00:25:51.000
Peggy Miller: Well, it's sweeter, and you use your sugar and your pineapple and uh your cherries, but the main ingredient is the rind. You cut off the green part, you know, the outside, you just use the white part.

00:25:51.000 --> 00:26:03.000
Of course we eat the red part and I also have made some, making some uh jelly out of the uh red.
J. L. Harris: Oh you're making...
Peggy Miller: Yes...

00:26:03.000 --> 00:26:07.000
J. L. Harris: So the watermelon then gives us two kinds of jellies
Peggy Miller: That's right.

00:26:07.000 --> 00:26:10.000
J. L. Harris: The watermelon rind.
Peggy Miller: That's right.

00:26:10.000 --> 00:26:13.000
J. L. Harris: Is that preserves you said?
Peggy Miller: That's preserves, and then the jelly
J. L. Harris: [[overlapping]] And then the watermelon jelly

00:26:13.000 --> 00:26:25.000
Peggy Miller: And then your pickles, you have the three items from that. And see down South, they have a lot of watermelons, so we put that, and it is delicious in the wintertime.

00:26:25.000 --> 00:26:40.000
Martha Barrs: Jerry, a lot people might not known that you can take a watermelon, and if you have part of it left, you can squeeze that red part into a juice and you can freeze that juice, then you can thaw it out and drink it in the, when the watermelons are out of season.

00:26:40.000 --> 00:26:46.000
J. L. Harris: Is that right? So you even keep some of your watermelon juice, to use, you freeze it?

00:26:46.000 --> 00:26:52.000
Martha Barrs: Yeah, you freeze it.
J. L. Harris: And so it makes a pleasant drink, I've never, had, just had watermelon juice as a drink.

00:26:52.000 --> 00:27:03.000
Martha Barrs: So anytime anybody craves the watermelon in the wintertime, just go get you some juice!
Peggy Miller: That's right, and then too you can freeze your rind too, you know cut it up, put it in your bags for later on, for use.

00:27:03.000 --> 00:27:07.000
J. L. Harris: For making pickles out of it later on, or making--
Peggy Miller: That's right.
J. L. Harris: Or making fresh relish later on.
Martha Barrs: Uh hmm

00:27:07.000 --> 00:27:21.000
J. L. Harris: Ok just quickly, let's cover just some of the vegetables that you will can down there. To, um, potatoes I thought was an interesting food to can. Um, why do think it's popular to can your potatoes?

00:27:21.000 --> 00:27:35.000
Martha Barrs: First uh, in the Spring of the year and as a tradition down home, we have, if you don't get your garden planted by February the 14th, you've got to get it planted by Good Friday.

00:27:35.000 --> 00:27:59.000
So if you plant it, by February the 14th, in the 1st of May you should have you some string beans and Irish potatoes. Everybody looks forward to having their first meals of string beans in the fresh new uh crop of Irish potatoes, so what we do is to uh can or freeze our Irish potatoes and string beans together, and then when you get ready to for some, you just open the jar and you have both!

00:27:59.000 --> 00:28:02.000
J. L. Harris: You've got your meal already half prepared
Peggy Miller: That's right.

00:28:02.000 --> 00:28:15.180
Martha Barrs: But what we do is to can the small potatoes, the ones that's about two or three inches in diameter. You don't get the big ones we usually cook them separate from what we do the ones that we put in the jars.
J. L. Harris: I see.

00:28:18.000 --> 00:28:21.000
J. L. Harris: So what are, what other kind of vegetables then do you also prepare?

00:28:21.000 --> 00:28:24.000
Peggy Miller: Squash. Squash, we can Squash.
J. L. Harris: Yeah.

00:28:24.000 --> 00:28:38.000
Peggy Miller: We can, uh, butter beans and peas. Uh, now they're not the little green peas; we do can those, the english peas, but there's a lot of different kinds. There's the purple hull, there's the white, there's a crowder.

00:28:38.000 --> 00:28:46.000
Peggy Miller: There's a purple crowder, a white crowder, and uh, what other kind *laughs* can you think of?
Martha Barrs: Black-eyes, field peas-
Peggy Miller: Black-eyes oh yes! Yes black-eyes-

00:28:46.000 --> 00:28:51.000
J. L. Harris: Peas are popular down there
Peggy Miller: Uh-huh
J. L. Harris: There's so many varieties.
Peggy Miller: Uh-huh

00:28:51.000 --> 00:29:05.000
Peggy Miller: And we do with the black-eyes, we do put the little onions in with 'em too and little Irish potatoes. I don't know if Martha has done that but we do around-
Martha Barrs: No I, I've never canned any that way.

00:29:05.000 --> 00:29:07.000
Peggy Miller: Yes, try that. That is delicious
Martha Barrs: I'll try that.

00:29:07.000 --> 00:29:21.000
J. L. Harris: Another interesting feature, I noticed in the South Georgia area were the canning cooperatives that you have sponsored by the county extension service. Do you ever use those, do you ever take your things to the cannery?

00:29:21.000 --> 00:29:22.000
Peggy Miller: Oh yes!
J. L. Harris: You do?

00:29:22.000 --> 00:29:37.000
Peggy Miller: If it wasn't from them, I don't know what we'd do because every time we get in trouble we go down there and then a new vegetable coming in, we go ask them and they have plenty of booklets to let you know, even a beginner, can get by with those books.

00:29:37.000 --> 00:29:42.000
Peggy Miller: You can learn overnight by reading those books, don't you agree Martha?.

00:29:42.000 --> 00:29:45.000
Martha Barrs: I can about as much at the canner as I do at the home.

00:29:45.000 --> 00:29:59.000
Peggy Miller: Yes.
Martha Barrs: One thing, the cans are not quite as expensive as jars. But another thing, by canning in different processes; like you're canning in jars-
J. L. Harris: Mhm.

00:29:59.000 --> 00:30:06.000
Martha Barrs: -your putting things in the can and then you're putting things in the freezer. All three of 'em have a different taste!
J. L. Harris: Ah! I see.
Peggy Miller: Yes. They do.

00:30:06.000 --> 00:30:10.000
Martha Barrs: They have their own distinctive taste.
J. L. Harris: Mhm.

00:30:10.000 --> 00:30:22.000
Martha Barrs: So therefore by doing all of it, if you get tired of one, you're not tired of the other one.
J. L. Harris: [[Laughs]]
Peggy Miller: Well, I've taken the canned soup down to the cannery, I believe that that tastes better than in the jars.

00:30:22.000 --> 00:30:25.000
Martha Barrs: That's the one to favorite.
Peggy Miller: Yes.
J. L. Harris: Is that right?
Peggy Miller: Yes it is.

00:30:25.000 --> 00:30:33.000
Peggy Miller: That's the favorite. You can see everybody down there, taking their canned soups down there.
J. L. Harris: To the can? People like that in the can?
Peggy Miller: Yes, Mhm.

00:30:33.000 --> 00:30:43.000
J. L. Harris: Tomatoes too they seem to like and peanuts I've noticed.
Peggy Miller: Yes.
Martha Barrs: Yup the canning company down in Oso[[?]] will let us even bring our own meat if we cook it at home.
J. L. Harris: Mhm.

00:30:43.000 --> 00:30:53.000
Martha Barrs: And then whenever we get our soup mixture mixed, and in the process of putting it in our can, we add the meat to it and then when we get through we just open up the can and we got soup, meat and all!

00:30:53.000 --> 00:30:57.310
J. L. Harris: [[Laughs]] You have everything you could-
Martha Barrs: We got everything right there ready to eat!
J. L. Harris: [[Laughs]]

00:30:59.000 --> 00:31:09.000
J. L. Harris: You also mentioned uh Peggy about canning in groups. You said, even when you don't go down to the canning cooperative, sometimes a group of you will get together and do some canning.

00:31:09.000 --> 00:31:35.000
Peggy Miller: Oh yeah there's six of us, one we all wash, and then one peels, or and then one washes, and then one puts it in the boiler and watches it boil, and when it's ready to put in jars, one puts it in the jar, the other one wipes the jar, and the other one seals it ready to go. And you'd be surprised you'd think we had a [[laugh]] a cannery going on down there. Some kind of factory.

00:31:35.000 --> 00:31:38.000
J. L. Harris: Why do you, why do you think you do that? Why do you like to get together like that to can?

00:31:38.000 --> 00:32:11.000
Peggy Miller: Well for company for one thing, and then another thing we get it through in one day. It doesn't prolong for two or three days for that one vegetable. We go out and gather it the night before, a bunch of us, and then we bring it in and the next morning we get there about six, we're ready, and if we babysitting and put them out in the yard, in a fenced in place, and that's the way we get things done. See if you just had one there you'd have to be running after the child and doing, but we get quite a bit done.

00:32:11.000 --> 00:32:16.000
J. L. Harris: I bet, and you don't heat up your house so much, I would think--
Peggy Miller: No. No we don't. No.
J. L. Harris: --and that's a big problem? Yeah.

00:32:16.000 --> 00:32:30.000
Martha Barrs: Some fruits, foods call for a quicker processing than others. If you sit and shell beans all day long some may be out of the jar too long, or out of the hull out of water.

00:32:30.000 --> 00:32:40.000
They'd be become dry and husky. Where is if you can get them, the quicker you can get them shelled from the time you pick them, to the time you put them in a jar, the better they're gonna be.

00:32:40.000 --> 00:32:56.000
So if you got a crowd you may can for a one group one day and the next group the next day and we help our neighbors as our neighbors helps us. So therefore we get our stuff picked, gathered, and in the jar just as quick as we can to get it processed better.

00:32:56.000 --> 00:32:59.000
J. L. Harris: That sounds like a good idea to me.
Peggy Miller: It is. Oh it's fun.

00:32:59.000 --> 00:33:04.000
Martha Barrs: And on account of that too we all take a covered dish and we all have a good dinner.

00:33:04.000 --> 00:33:07.000
Peggy Miller: That's right! That's the way to do it.
J. L. Harris: [[cross-talk]] That's the way to do it.

00:33:07.000 --> 00:33:11.330
J. L. Harris: Do any of you have any questions that you'd like to ask these ladies? You've been a good audience.

00:33:15.000 --> 00:33:41.000
Female voice 1: [[distant]] I don't plan on canning because, you know, it's expensive, um, but what I'd like to do [[inaudible]] a relish recipe, that I just want to cook it and put it in the refrigerator. Do you see any problems because I know there could be dangers [[inaudible]] So if I want to make tomato relish [[inaudible]] cook it and put it [[inaudible]] in a container and refrigerate it and not worry --

00:33:41.000 --> 00:33:54.000
Martha Barrs: You can cook it and put it in the refrigerator, but I would advise you to keep that under refrigeration at all times. Don't leave it setting on the table after the meal for a good while intending to clean the table off a little later.

00:33:54.000 --> 00:34:02.000
I would say put it back in the refrigerator but I wouldn't make no more than I could use within say a week and a half or two weeks till the longest.

00:34:02.000 --> 00:34:06.000
[[inaudible]]

00:34:06.000 --> 00:34:08.000
J. L. Harris: Any other questions?

00:34:08.000 --> 00:34:14.000
Female voice 2: Can you can green peas, uh green peanuts?
Martha Barrs: Do you want to answer that?

00:34:14.000 --> 00:34:38.000
Peggy Miller: You can can green peanuts, yes, we do.
Martha Barrs: [[overlapping]] Yes ma'am I can green peanuts. Now to process those we just pull 'em up out of the ground. We wash 'em. We green pack 'em into a jar and adds the salt in the water and then we cook'em for about twenty minutes in our pressure cooker and then when we get ready to eat 'em we just rinse the brine water off and we go sit down and watch our favorite ball game. [[laughter]]

00:34:38.000 --> 00:34:45.000
And the scoring who's team is behind is how many peanuts you're gonna eat. If yours is behind, you eat the peanuts faster.

00:34:45.000 --> 00:34:52.000
Female voice 3: Do you know how to can grape leaves? Grape leaves?

00:34:52.000 --> 00:34:59.000
Martha Barrs: I've never canned any grape leaves, no ma'am.
Peggy Miller: [[overlapping]] No I haven't. Your county agent may know that. We--

00:34:59.000 --> 00:35:03.000
Female voice 4: It would probably be like canning collards, I bet.

00:35:03.000 --> 00:35:24.130
Peggy Miller: Yeah
Martha Barrs: [[overlapping]] I would advise, I would advise that you go, uh, do that, the, uh, county extension office out of the county that you live in, but also, here in Washington, the books are published through the agriculture department. If you don't have one of those cannning books, write and ask you for one and get you advise from your county extension agent.

00:35:26.000 --> 00:35:36.000
J. L. Harris: Thank you very much for being with us today, and I especially thank these two ladies who really know how to can a lot of good south Georgia food. Thank you very much.

00:35:36.000 --> 00:35:37.000
Peggy Miller: [[overlapping]] Thank you very much, thank you
Martha Barrs: [[overlapping]] Thank you

00:35:37.000 --> 00:48:24.840
[SILENCE]