Canning without the use of plastic?

[PrettySquareGal]

This summer will be my first time ever canning what I grow! It appears that I need a "bubble popper" and a top space measurer, and all I am seeing online for those tools are ones made of plastic. I did a search for vintage but nothing was coming up. In the meantime I have ordered a granite ware canning pot and rack. Please help out a newbie and teach me how to can like it's 1939!

 

[Turnip]

Westmark might be worth a look, should also be available in US through Mr. Bezos. They run quite a nice variety of Classic/old time kitchen supplies .

https://westmark.de/produktkatalog/en/stoning-preserving-1.html?limit=all

Have fun browsing, maybe this might help a bit further on.

 

[PrettySquareGal]

Thank you. I'm seeing there what I've see on Amazon, a mix of steel and plastic for some canning items, but still no bubble popping/measuring devices on there, and again the ones I see online are plastic:

https://www.amazon.com/Pieces-Canning-Remover-Measurer-Magnetic/dp/B08NJGD5PV/ref=asc_df_B08NJGD5PV/

I wonder if they didn't use those back in the day or what would be a good substitute. Maybe I'll get lucky this summer while estate sale-ing!

 

[PrettySquareGal]

I thought I'd get many replies. Are Loungers not into canning?

 

[Turnip]

I, my girlie and many friends around here had canned stuff of all sorts way beyond any limit as kids as our parents were war kids and carried that canning thing on as kind of an obsession.
I would not know anyone who would be keen on reanimating that, maybe in case of a new war or with an other kind of gun in the neck.

 

[Just Jim]

Oneof the best sources of canning supplies (as well as all kinds of "stuff" for the Victory Gardener) is Lehmans: https://www.lehmans.com/ They may have what you're looking for.

 

[PrettySquareGal]

Oneof the best sources of canning supplies (as well as all kinds of "stuff" for the Victory Gardener) is Lehmans: https://www.lehmans.com/ They may have what you're looking for.

I am familiar with them, but unfortunately they are selling the same imported stuff, much of it plastic, as on Amazon.

 

[PrettySquareGal]

I would not know anyone who would be keen on reanimating that, maybe in case of a new war or with an other kind of gun in the neck.

I am keen on reanimating it. That's what the Fedora Lounge is about for many of us: learning about and continuing traditions and customs from a bygone era. Even so, canning is very much alive and a contemporary practice. I have no interest in Fedoras but other aspects of the era. No need to throw shade on those of us who have other interests different from yours. I wanted to post here first but will find a non-vintage site to seek advice in hopes that some will be familiar with how their grandparents canned. Thanks all.

 

[Turnip]

Here´s some equipment that has been used on slaughter days, when the butcher came to our yard slaughtering the selected pig(s)... at home.

The piggy barn still exists, we use it as a garden shed meanwhile, other half it is my little workshop.
The whole slurry infrastructure still exists, it´s just filled up with gravel, so could easily be re-activated.

The cooking machine below, where all the good sausages, headcheese...have been made on, stands in it (been placed in the laundry cellar back in the days) and i still fire it sometimes for heating the shed / workshop in winter.

The last pig slaughter i attended must have been late eighties / early nineties of the last century...


Good old style, knocking the pig out with the square end of an axe blade, then bled it out by a stab in the throat, scalding over and de-bristling it, then carving it down bit by bit in the yard.