Mrs. Curmudgeon is the cook of the household. She’s far better at food than I. (I think that’s a matter of priorities. In general, if I’ve produced adequate healthy calories, I’ve done enough. If it’s bland but you’re not going to die… well that’s good enough. Flavor and spices and shit are nice to have but once I’ve cleared the “no starvation” bar I start to tune out. I’m not the only guy that’s like that.)
In the holiday season Mrs. Curmudgeon shines like a rock star! She goes apeshit cooking food. She cooks in what feels like buckets and truckloads. She could feed an army; and what a lucky army it would be! We regularly have more dishes than we have guests. She makes absolutely stunning food. It’s a sight to behold! It baffles me. Also it’s all done on the fly using skill (or magic) because I swear she’s never followed a recipe in her life. When she sees me messing around with a measuring spoon her first thought is to slap the offending implement away. From my uninformed point of view it looks like she “wings it” to culinary success.
I’m not kidding when I say it’s impressive. She’s been known to churn out more delicious pies (in various types) than people at the table!
“After dinner is over, everyone pick their favorite pie!”
No shit! A zillion assorted pies. Just pick one and have at it! Is that not awesome?
This Christmas she was a tired as I. At my prompting, she sensibly rested by the fire while I took the wheel in the kitchen. Since I’m me, I tried an entirely different approach than her dazzling creations. In a development near and dear to my Cro-Magnon heart, we had what I called a “down home, inflation-proof, bunker level, meal o’ heartiness“.
My plan was simple, I’d feed us all with food I’d raised or hunted. Why? Because real food is delicious. Also, I have a lot of it and we might as well get used to it. We’re probably already in a world where supply chains are… um… not what they once were. So let’s embrace it. There was to be nothing elaborate but plenty of what we did have. That’s how I roll!
One can go overboard with games like that. (I’ve yet to figure out how to hunt butter and I’m not going to make a rice paddy in the yard.) Like a sane man, I leavened idealism with realistic expectations. Regardless, I still got to where I wanted to go. Everyone was happy so I didn’t fret too much over the details. Also, there was no pie. I couldn’t make a Mrs. Curmudgeon level pie if my life depended on it.
Preparation for my Curmudgeonly Christmas Feast took all year and just a few moments on the day itself.
This summer I “experimented” with corn; planting half assed rows in an abandoned pig pen. I more or less ignored the crop after that. I specifically limited my labors because I’m already too busy; I wanted corn but not another job. I spent the summer wondering if the weeds or the corn would win the arms race. When the time came, I waded through a jungle to find corn doing ok right in the middle of the mess!
I didn’t get a huge yield but it tasted great. One afternoon we had more corn than I felt like eating. We’d already had corn on the cob several times. So Mrs. Curmudgeon and I “saved” several ears worth. We did it about the most primitive way possible. We cut the raw kernels off the cob, crammed the results in four large ziplock bags, and hurled them into the freezer. That’s it. Would it work? Only a Christmas meal would tell.
In November I readied the main course. I shot a deer and then did all the steps of butchering and preservation.
Butchering is an area in life where I’m “leveling up”. It took forever to become a reasonably competent hunter and I humbly think I’ve finally accomplished that. However, I’d formerly ignored butchering. For years I brought big game straight from the forest to a butcher. My main involvement after the hammer dropped was to drag the animal to my truck, haul it somewhere, and cut a check.
That’s not particularly cool as woodsman but I’ve no regrets. I’ve got only so many hours in the day and butchers are the only readily available labor pool. I’d much prefer doing my own butchering and spend my money on skilled services like plumbers. But there are no plumbers. Since I can actually find a butcher, I happily hired them! I wanted to take stress off my busy schedule and they’re literally all I can hire.
That was then and this is now. Now, it’s a recession. (Don’t let anyone tell you different!) For that reason and others, I wanted to level up. I’ve slowly been upgrading my butchering skills (it’s not hard but it’s a lot of physical work!). I after a few years “being my own butcher” I expanded into canning.
With the helpful mentoring of a friend who knows his shit, I gingerly ventured into “the pressure canning zone”. Pressure canning is not rocket science but I sure appreciated a nudge in the right direction.
Sealed pressurized vessels are a thing to which you ought to pay attention. Follow the instructions, don’t overpressure your vessel, don’t blow up the kitchen, be patient, etc… It works well with my personality which zones out when told to “add a pinch of salt” but targets like a laser when told “heat at X pounds for Y minutes”. Incidentally, I love pressure canning. It’s pretty cool to start with a critter and end up with a perfectly sealed jar.
Everything from the deer that was good enough to be steak got wrapped and tossed into the freezer as steak (thus burying the forgotten corn). Everything slightly less awesome than “steak” got cut into stew meat chunks, pre-cooked, and put into the canner. I used virtually no flavoring except some salt; which is fine because it smelled heavenly and tasted better. The remaining critter bits went through the grinder to become “burger”. Don’t think that’s bad stuff! I’ll take a deer-cheeseburger over cow anytime.
Canning was a lot of work but the process appeared to be a success. However, I hadn’t yet cracked open a jar to taste it yet.
You won’t be surprised that I get a whole lot more food out of a critter when I butcher it myself compared to when I hire it done. It’s an almost comically obvious discovery, but I verified it as true.
Well before Christmas our guests heard about the canned deer. This prompted a lot of inquiries. “How does it taste? Is it safe? What’s it look like? Does it have good texture?” I had no idea. Why not join us to find out on the holiday? It became like a present. “Lets open this jar and see what happens.”
I think of canned meat as “pioneer food”. I didn’t have any expectation it would be better than frozen. I was wrong! It was waaaaaay better! Pressure canning was developed for a time before reliable power girds and freezers but that doesn’t mean it’s bland. (Also, we might as well get used to jars. Reliable 24/7 power grid conditions came from a society run by intelligent serious adults. What will you do when dipshits make the whole grid “green” and your freezer goes without power every third week? Q: “What did socialists use for light before candles?” A: “Electricity!”)
I didn’t expect anyone to care about my experiments but interest was palpable. Then I tasted some. I get it now! Our elders were onto something. I was tasty! Just plain delicious!
In November, (after the deer) as “practice”, I canned a big bag of carrots. My second use of the canner and another addition to the meal!
A few days before Christmas I attacked a ten pound bag of potatoes. I prepared enough to fill all the quart jars I had left. I annoyed Mrs. Curmudgeon by leaving 4 unused potatoes in a 99% empty bag but that’s what happens when a nerd carefully celebrates his “canning volume”. Over a mellow afternoon I peeled, chopped, boiled, and canned several quarts of potato. It’s work, but it felt rewarding.
Like the carrots, this wasn’t a crop I’d grown, but you have to start somewhere. Potatoes were my third “batch” of canning. They came out pretty well if I do say so myself.
The Big Day:
On Christmas day we had guests coming, so I did the right thing and took a nap. One can get overworked trying to make holidays perfect! I decided to go “low stress” and I meant it. I enjoyed that two hour snooze!
After guests arrived I started opening jars. I expected the meal to be “quasi-instant” and I was correct.
The potatoes and carrots were stupid simple to prepare. Drain the fluid, dump the jar contents into a bowl, nuke until hot, add salt and pepper (if I remembered). A monkey could do it. Start with a pantry filled with righteously canned foods and you can’t go wrong.
I found a couple bags of the raw frozen corn under a ton of other things in the freezer. I dumped it in a bowl and nuked the raw frozen kernels. Just as everything else, it was stupid simple to cook and it came out delicious. It tasted like a summer afternoon!
The meat was too valuable for my attentions so Mrs. Curmudgeon took over. Even so, it was dirt simple. I drained the liquid into a saucepan. Mrs. Curmudgeon jumped in front of me lest I do something terrible like measure ingredients or consult a recipe. She did some sort of magic voodoo while I wandered around the kitchen getting in everyone’s way. Whatever she added turned the saucepan liquid into delicious gravy. For all I know it was uranium.
Meanwhile, I dumped the meat into a skillet and stirred lazily. I kept grabbing bits out of the skillet (even cold and unseasoned the meat was delicious!). Mrs. Curmudgeon grabbed a spatula and tried to defend the skillet from my predations. She also added a handful of elixirs and powders (she calls them spices but they’re magic to me). As soon as it was warm, the saucepan of gravy went on top. Yum!
Fresh bread appeared. I have a wheat mill but I was too lazy to make dough. Mrs. Curmudgeon somehow conjured the bread. I assume she has a magic wand or something.
Meat, gravy, potatoes, carrots, corn, fresh bread. Everything the product of simple cooking. Nothing we ate would be out of place in 1920 (or 1820). Most of it came from my own efforts and all the effort was on the front end. Once it’s in a jar, reheating is a monkey level task. (Aside from the gravy which is probably more complex than cold fusion.)
It sounds crude and it was… but everything was amazing!
We all had a great meal. I was pleased. If I’d been in a fancy restaurant I couldn’t have had more flavor. If I’d been a king I couldn’t have felt more wealthy. If I’d climbed a mountain to get the potatoes I couldn’t have felt more proud.
Obviously, I’ll never compete with Mrs. Curmudgeon’s gourmet pies but that’s not the point. This year’s meal was just right for the world in which we’ve been thrown. We ate like farmers from three generations back and it was perfect. It was better than the most expensive meal money could buy. Everyone was happy.
It may have been one of the best Christmas meals ever! Never forget the joy (and wonderful taste!) of simple things.
You have a talent good Sir, you have a talent. Great writing. You should do a weekly column for newspapers.
I ‘may’ be a little jealous, you appear to have a keeper.
Her skill will have been developed and been worked (hard) on for years (the old Bruce Lee quote of how a “punch is just a punch” springs to mind. To a beginner in martial arts, a punch is just a punch. As you study and gain experience it becomes nuanced and infinitely complicated. Then as a skilled experienced practitioner a punch is just a punch again). I suspect she started off adding just a pinch of this and that, then a period of study and careful measurement, and now she’s so skilled she can just … add a pinch of this and that again (ensuring results that no mere recipe will ever equal).
Your waxing lyrical about your good lady’s talent and skill is, not surprisingly, unsurprising, it’s something (normal) men everywhere notice and appreciate in their loved ones (and openly comment on and celebrate, bragging to other men of their wife). The reverse is, unfortunately, rare as hens-teeth, a woman who notices, let alone commends, her husbands deeds (whilst criticising appears to be a female competitive national sport now).
[I may have mentioned a guilty pleasure of watching ‘garden rescue/make-overs’ on YT. I, eventually, noticed that whilst some of the clients, whether in The US, Australia or Tasmania, were elderly or disabled men, the overwhelming majority are single women. I suspect they are single because “I do everything around the house”, and wasn’t close to the reality they suddenly found out about post kicking the spouse out of his home. My point, so few women can, let alone will, acknowledge that married life is a team effort, and feeling good about your spouse achieving something is gratifying in and of itself, and something most women are apparently incapable of now – climbing carefully off my soapbox].
Whatever the circumstances, the number of women who would accept ‘their’ doing without, let alone act to support their husbands endeavours (ensuring it a success) are now unicorn rare. I suspect appreciating what you have is the least of your problems though.
Just a little, as I said.
FYI, my Christmas dinner was shot and then cooked on a spit, with extras in a dutch oven, over an open fire, alone (except for a team of huskies, the unappreciative louts) on top of a slightly chilly (-30F) mountain. Best Christmas in years!
Sounds good. What’s your plan when the canning lids run out? A solar dehydrator has been my Goto and it also part of the wood shed
Sounds like you married above your status (like I did) with an excellent on the fly cook. Good job.
My Christmas feast would be more modest but high calorie. Fresh Turkey would be on the menu.
You can reuse the lids, normally 4 or 5 times. We have done for years. Buy them by the thousand and they’re cheap too.
Geo have you actually used the current stock of canning lids 4 or 5 times? What success rate did you get from the cool down period? The 6 months later period?
Water processing or pressure canning?
Old ones had much better and thicker rubber.
I’ve seen failures last fall from new ones. I tend to use the old, reused lids for vacc packing and they seem to do reasonably well, a few failures so like Grandmom used to do weekly you check the cellar and use those up first.
Tattler lids – we’ve used them for 20 years.
https://www.reusablecanninglids.com/
It sounds delicious to me too. When I hunted and was successful in bringing deer / feral hog home, I too went to butcher to cut into pieces and packages. I began as butchering myself but the long hours of boning out meat in the kitchen (saves room!) after a hunt wore my resolve quick. I did not have room to hang the meat to age it and our far Southern location rarely had the temperature to allow this any way. So meat prep was immediately done after driving in.
At beginning,a lot of expensive breakfast sausage (chorizo, and ‘Owens’ flavor) was payed for. It took two years to realize we don’t eat breakfast enough to make this worthwhile, and a lot was given away as Christmas gifts (much appreciated too!). We became more practical, each package being a meal. Three steaks per package. One pound ground burger packages. Half of the burger mixed with beef fat, the remaining half with pork fat. The burger fried up in skillet, with a can of mushrooms, two cut up cloves of garlic and can of tomato sauce – Ummmm! Piled on top of spaghetti or another boiled pasta and some bread or crackers on the side – big smiles around the table.
Your present approach to meals sounds delicious. Similar to you, I prefer ‘right now’ to sumptious requiring hours of cooking.
as always, i do so enjoy your stories and your talent at relating them. thank you and good luck in the coming year. chuck in dow.
I got hungry reading this. I need to up my game 🙂
next time you pressure can meat, try adding a teaspoon or less of dehydrated onion flakes to a jar, or 1/2 clove of garlic to each jar , before processing meat in the canner.
only add to 1 or 2 jars the first time, to see if you like the addition, and adjust amounts accordingly.
I used to can a lot of beef with a little french onion soup mix added before processing.
or open jar, drain, shred meat, add bbq sauce, heat, for quick bbq sandwiches.
or open jar, drain, add little water, noodles for quick meal
lots of things can be made with canned meat.
process a few pint jars to take camping.
Rice paddy in the yard… turns out there are upland varieties of rice (I tried growing a little in my garden in 2020, but weeds took over – the rice did grow, and did produce seed heads, but I didn’t try getting in among the weeds to harvest them, and I hear that de-hulling rice is a pain). Supposedly some regular paddy-grown strains of rice will also grow in normal fields.
My attempt at growing other smaller-than-corn grains last year was thwarted by a combination of weeds, poor planning, and not enough time to battle the weeds.
As usual, I’m learning from your accounts, and kinda-sorta following along, a year or two behind. We just got a pressure canner, and already have a modest supply of jars; stocking up on jars (and shelves) ahead of harvest season is on the agenda for the year.
Good luck learning from my BS. But you’ve got the right idea, if you’re going to follow, follow a few years behind in case I do something stupid. BTW: canners are a bit complex. I recommend pressure canning something easy (like store-bought potatoes) as a test run. Follow the instructions carefully, you’ll be fine. I started with my precious fall harvested deer. It worked but only because I had a great mentor. Also, I think it’s kinda’ fun.
Adaptive next year try again planting the corn in that rich earth pig pen but first (maybe really soon) cover that area with a light blocking tarp or layers of cardboard to smother the weeds. A few weeks without light they run out of stored energy and become compost for your planting.
I do that even now as my snow is currently melted away (winter thaw) and some extra greening is going on. Plants make “hay” when the sun shines too.
A dark tarp or cardboard seems to speed up spring thaw a bit too.
Then after the corn is planted cover the whole area with shredded leaves. A thin layer until you see some corn green showing then keep tossing it on. Suppresses weeds well, helps corn retain moisture and makes a better harvest as you can pull the few weeds that poke up. My neighbors are thrilled to let me take those “worthless leaves”.
I do this in my pancake patch of 10X20 wheat and it’s really great.
Shredded leaves work great with winter planted potatoes also. I am in grow zone 4 or 5 depending on what chart you read.
Don’t use allopathic leaves like oak. Mine are beech and birch.