The Art of Putting Up — Read the Front Porch

There's a smell that lives in the back of my memory like it never left — hot sugar and ripe tomatoes, mason jars lined up on the counter like little soldiers, and Mama moving around that kitchen like she was born to it. That's what we called it in the mountains: putting up. Not canning. Not preserving. Putting up — like you were storing something away for the hard days, because you knew they were coming.

Every August, without fail, the whole holler smelled like a garden on fire. The women would get up before the sun had any business being awake, and they'd work till their backs ached and their hands were stained red from the berries. Green beans snapped and dropped into buckets with a rhythm that sounded like a slow country song. Corn shucked on the porch while the dogs lazed in the shade, waiting on a cob to roll their way.

Fresh heirloom tomatoes, green beans, and cucumbers in a rattan basket on a marble farmhouse kitchen counter — From garden to counter — heirloom tomatoes, green beans, and summer cucumbers, just in from the ground.

I was just a boy, but I knew even then that what those women were doing was more than cooking. They were writing a letter to January. We saw this summer, that letter said. We saved it for you.

"They were writing a letter to January. We saw this summer, that letter said. We saved it for you."
— Big John

My grandmother could look at a pantry shelf the way a banker looks at a ledger — counting, calculating, knowing exactly what would get the family through to spring. A bad putting-up season wasn't just inconvenience. It was real hunger. And she didn't forget that, even in the good years.

The work of it

Hands snapping fresh green beans over a white ceramic bowl on a butcher block counter — The snap of a green bean is its own kind of music — a sound that means summer is being put to good use.

There's a generation coming up now that's never stood over a hot stove in July putting up tomatoes, never heard the satisfying pop of a lid sealing down tight. I don't say that to judge — Lord knows I've bought more than a few cans off a grocery shelf myself. But I do think something gets lost when we stop doing those things. Some knowledge, some patience, some connection to the land and to the people who worked it before us.

A large black enamel stockpot on a gas range with mason jars of tomatoes visible inside, steam rising — The water bath — the hardest part of a hot July afternoon, and the most satisfying when those lids seal down one by one.

"That row of sealed jars on the shelf is one of the most beautiful sights I know. That's not just food. That's time you'll never have to go hungry."
— Big John

If you ever get the chance, put up something this summer. Doesn't matter what — jam, pickles, salsa. Do it the old way, with good jars and a big pot and somebody beside you who knows what they're doing. You'll be tired and hot and your kitchen will look like a tomato exploded.

Rows of sealed Ball mason jars — tomatoes, green beans, apple butter, jam — on walnut floating shelves with brass brackets — Tomatoes, green beans, apple butter, strawberry jam — a summer's worth of work, lined up and ready for whatever winter brings.

And you'll have made something that'll taste like August in the dead of February. Something you can open on a cold night and smell the whole summer come rushing back — the heat, the garden, the good work done with your own two hands.

That's worth doing.

— Big John

John Chaney · Appalachian Author & Pharmacist · Hazard, Kentucky

More Stories Coming Soon