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HOW TO CAN MEATS
E
^VERY watchful housekeeper
knows that at certain times she
can get excellent round steak
. for seventeen cents a pound,
which is twenty-eight cents a
pound another time. At times rabbit is
plentiful and cheap. It is possible to get
squabs for eighteen cents apiece at certain
seasons, which are eighty cents another
season. Also chicken is way out
of reach most of the time.
If a woman keeps house for thirty
years, and meat is served twice a day
she prepares meat 21,900 times. If she
uses meat she puts up herself, the saving
she will make will mount into the thousands
of dollars in this time. As far as
taste is concerned, meat preserved in jars
is every bit as good as meat cooked in
tireless cookers. The flavor is preserved.
and no food sterilized four hours and
immediately made air tight in jars can
deteriorate in a year.
Undoubtedly the most money could be
saved in canning meats, if a half or
quarter of beef could be purchased, but
since this is not practicable for the
greater number" of housewives, almost
as much can be saved by getting smaller
amounts of meat whenever they can be
bought at the most reasonable market
prices.
A great deal was learned by watching
a woman in the country who purchased
a hind quarter of beef at ten cents a
pound, which she would have paid
twenty-four cents for, buying from day
to day. She put the beef into a covered
roaster after sawing the bone, and covered
it with three quarts of boiling
water. When it was half done she
salted it. When it was roasted to a turn
she cut some of the meat in large pieces,
and cut all the rest of the meat in small
pieces, as for a meat stew, put the bones
to soak in a jar, and added a teaspoon of
salt in each jar of meat. Some brown
gravy was made in the roasting pan,
95S
I
By JANE NESBITT
with the drippings. The large pieces of
meat were put into the larger jars, and
the smaller pieces into the smaller jars.
The brown gravy was poured in till all
crevices were full, and jars were level
full. The lids were adjusted, but nut
quite tight.
Now came the important part. She
filled her wash boiler, which held twentyeight
quarts. On the bottom of the
boiler she laid the first tier of jars, and
poured over them cold water, up to their
necks. She put the second tier directly
on top of the first, being careful not to
displace any clamp in the slightest. She
packed also a smaller zinc tub with
twenty-two more jars in the same way,
and by three o'clock in the afternoon,
after boiling these jars for four hours,
she had fifty jars of wholesome, delicious
meat.
When rabbit is most plentiful she preserves
it in the same way, sometimes
mixing it with chicken. She adds a
teaspoon of salt to each jar, and boils
for four hours. Nothing goes to waste
in the house. Her sausages she makes
herself, and preserves in the same way,
defying detection from fresh sausages.
I ler delicious chicken salad and creamed
chicken all comes from home-preserved
chicken, bought when chicken is cheapest.
In the spring, when smelt are most
plentiful she buys from fishermen at
about half the market price. After
cleaning and rinsing, she sprinkles them
lightly with salt, and packs them in pint
jars, alternating with light sprinkles of
mixed spices. She pours over them
vinegar till each jar is full, adjusts the
lids, and boils an hour and a half.
This woman is not a household
drudge. She never wears a kimono in
the kitchen, she belongs to three women's
clubs, attends them in her own little
sedan, and firmly believes that it is up to
women to a large extent to cut the high
cost of living.