Bread and Butter Nightmare

 

Sometimes when I am feeling nostalgic I think back to my Bread and Butter nightmare.  When I  first moved to the country as a young bride and mother I wanted so badly to fit in.  I bought a subscription to Mother Earth News, I planted a garden in the round (of course I planted it over our septic tank), I canned, preserved stuff, froze things....lived off the land.  My precious MIL gave me a bushel of cucumbers, zucchini, and tomatoes and a canning book.  Bless her heart, she figured I was educated and could figure this one out by reading the directions.  How wrong she was.  I made and froze about 30 loaves of zucchini bread.

 

I canned over 50 quarts/pints of Bread and Butter pickles, and canned 24 quarts of tomatoes.  Herein lies the problem.  With the tomatoes there was a page missing from the book.  I followed the directions as I had them and ended up with first and second degree burns on my hands from my efforts.    I swore then and there I would NEVER can tomatoes again.  I did not care how good they tasted.  I do freeze them....but hot water baths and my hands do not mix. 

 

The pickles were a whole new experience.  I followed the directions very carefully....missing one small step.  The pickles looked amazing, they all sealed, and when my son and I opened the first jar....we were totally grossed out.  Those were the nastiest things I have ever tried to swallow.  My BIL brought over his backhoe, dug a hole for me, and allowed me to bury my humongous mistake, jars and all.  I laugh sometimes when I think of this.  Imagine how funny it will be when someday there will be some famous archaeologist who will dig up my jars of pickles and wonder what in the devil they are.  I just hope they don't try and eat one.