She made sweet pickles and piccalilli (relish) when cucumbers were in season; canned red tomatoes and green beans, froze shell peas and corn. My siblings and I picked rhubarb from the patch growing near the clothesline to make pie filling.
We would pick brown paper grocery bags full of fluffy yellow dandelion flowers from the lawn, shaking the tiny brown ants from them so she could make wine. This was stored in recapped Fanta soda bottles in the basement. To clarify: we re-used the caps as well as the bottles.
Come fall, jams and jellies were crafted from wild blackberries and roadside apples; sticky green butternuts that fell from the trees in the backyard were gathered and dried on newspapers laid out on the porch.
There were garden-harvested potatoes in wooden bins, and yellow onions stored in old pantyhose hanging from the ceiling in the cellar. These were used for next year's planting stock, if there were any remaining.
I was reminded of all that self-sufficiency while my husband Dan was breaking down a thirty-six pound turkey to refreeze as parts. (We are only two people and can feast on just the wings or a single drumstick for days.) While manually separating the sixteen-pound breast from the backside he asked me if I wanted to make stock. I said "No" and felt a twinge of guilt. I had the smoker primed for the wings and could have easily added the carcass. But then I would have had to spend all the rest of the day simmering it on the stove, and I have plenty of work I should be doing instead.
As you have probably surmised, I wasn't brought up to waste anything, much less flesh-on bones. A bird carcass or ham-bone, water, and an onion can make a meal or three for next to nothing. But no matter how penny-pinchy or dollar-stretchy a savvy cook gets, real bills can't be paid with a repertoire of clever recipes and a horde of canning jars. Well, most can't.
I'm not thumbing my nose at food-shrewd Internet sensation Clara Cannucciari (greatdepressioncooking.com). All due respect to the old gal, I already know how to serve up canned tuna wiggle over Saltine crackers, make "souper" Minute Rice, plate sloppy Joes, and have eaten plenty of white sugar on hot buttered toast for breakfast in my day.
Will there be spiritual repercussions for my wicked turkey tailbone hating ways? Who knows! I require only minor absolution from the kitchen gods for this transgression, because I gave that barely-edible bird section to the semi-feral barn cats. They work hard on the farm and they gotta eat, too.
