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The War
Catherine Seiberling Pond is an architectural historian, writer, and former house museum manager and she maintains a blog on domestic life at inthepantry.blogspot.com For more information on The Pantry - Its History and Modern Uses, please see her website at CatherinePond.com or Gibbs-Smith.com During the two world wars, despite the increased availability of canned goods, American women were called upon to put up their own food as part of their patriotic duty. Available tin was used for some commercial canning but most tin was used in the war effort. By this time, hot pack canning was considered the most reliable and, with "two hours from garden to can," the rule to follow. Around World War I, canning clubs were encouraged and fostered by such groups as the Deparment of Home Economics at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. Farm women and their teenage children were also encouraged to start canning businesses from their farm homes. A 1942 article detailed the effort: "This year, American homemakers are canning at home as a patriotic duty, for it is especially important that no food be allowed to go to waste during the summer and fall . . . From the standpoints of family health and economy, the canning of vegetables from Victory Gardens, and homegrown or locally-gathered wild fruits, and also reasonably priced fresh products on the market is one of the homemaker's important contributions to the wartime nutrition program." Because sugar was an essential canning ingredient, home canners were also allowed special privileges: "According to regulations issued by the OPA, effective May 19, 1942, each home canner will be permitted to purchase 'an amount not to exceed one pound of sugar for canning each four quarts of finished fruit.' Finished fruit means that which is prepared, heated and ready to be packed with jars, or actually four quarts of canned fruit."1
The extensive grounds of the thirty-year-old estate provided much of the fruit and produce for canning. Mature orchards of peach, apple, plum, and cherry, an extensive grape arbor, and a kitchen garden--were available to the kitchen staff. Of note is that sugar is often recorded--certainly because of wartime rationing--and menus reflect use of fallen fruit, another frugal gesture. Sunday, June 18: Monday, June 27: Sunday, July 16: Monday, July 17: Wednesday, July 19: Friday, July 28: Monday, August 14: Thursday & Friday, August 10 & 11: Friday, August 18: Tuesday, August 22: Friday, August 25: Thursday, August 31: Friday, September 1: 1. Doris W. McCray, "The Hot Pack Method Makes Wartime Canning Simple, Safe and Sure," American Cookery 47, no. 2 (August-September 1942): 46-47. 2. "Employee Ledger," Gertrude Penfield Seiberling, 1944. Stan Hywet Hall & Gardens, Akron, Ohio. |
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The Wartime Pantry
Wartime also impacted larger estate homes throughout the country. In 1944 when an employee ledger was kept, the staff at Stan Hywet--a Tudor Revival mansion in Akron, Ohio (today preserved as a museum: www.stanhywet.org)--had diminished to a small handful of employees due to household economy and wartime realities. These kitchen notes are inventory-like and reflect the economy of the times. In addition to its food and butler's pantries, Stan Hywet had a canning room--referred to as the "fruit cellar"--in the storage areas of the vast cellar and an unusual one fashioned out of a cavelike cistern beneath the Japanese garden.