[or-roots] Pressure cookers and canning

[Cecil Houk]

Les:

I'm sure that people do this ONLY once (popping the lid too soon on a pressure cooker).  I know that
my grandmother never did it again (or admitted to it).

High altitudes make for strange things.  Having spent a couple of months in Denver, CO I can attest
to that.

I'm sure that the wood kitchen stove that we had in the Shea house was left there by someone.  The
kerosene stove was something we had prior to moving to Foster.

Cecil


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Leslie Chapman" <khanjehgil at presys.com>
To: "Oregon List" <or-roots at sosinet.sos.state.or.us>
Sent: Wednesday, May 19, 2004 10:41 PM
Subject: [or-roots] Pressure cookers and canning


> I know all about letting the lid off too soon, I tried that once, I pulled
> the weight and let it blow for a while til it seemed released, and then
> popped the lid; I didn't blow food quite all over the kitchen or hit the
> roof with the lid, but it was a near thing. Somebody in my family did the
> same as Cecil's gram once but I don't remember who.
>
> I do remember a pressure cooking story of my Dad's and wish I remembered the
> details like who and where, all I can remember is these guys were camping
> out real high in elevation and couldn't get their beans cooked, as Cecil
> said the lid and wieght mechanism raised the water temp speeding up the
> cooking; well unconfined water at a high elevation will boil at
> significantly less than 212 degrees fahrenhiet hence the half cooked beans.
>
> The were in some kind of construction or mining camp and folks were whining
> about the half cooked beans so much one of the guys said he'd get some of
> them real well done; he took a metal container (don't remember if it was a
> tin can or piece of pipe) and filled it with beans and water and sealed it
> an threw it in the fire.
>
> There may have been money riding on the beans getting coooked or some such,
> don't remember, all I know is Dad said everybody was real quick to concede
> the point that he "could" get the beans cooked thoroughly and would he just
> pull that container out of the campfire. I believe this story was in the
> mountains somewhere in Arizona, it may even have been the crew my dad worked
> with building a road up Graham mountain.
>
> As to canning, my mom used to can on a wood stove, so your Mom was living in
> the lap of luxury canning on something so easily regulated as kerosene stove
> Cecil.
>
> Les Chapman khanjehgil at presys.com
>