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Latest sweet relish production.
I believe I have just about canned enough pickles this year. Current count:
Bread and Butter Pickles (16 pints and 5 quarts)
Sweet Gherkin Pickles (8 pints)
Dede’s Sweet Relish (16 pints and one half-pint)
Dill Pickles (8 pints)
I’ll be canning some more sweet gherkins next week. I’m still saving up tiny cukes for that one. Other than that, I think I need to stop. We’re having a bumper cucumber crop this year, but there comes a point where it’s just silly and a waste of resources (time, jars, propane) to put away more. I’m providing for our needs, not stocking a pickle warehouse. I already have more than plenty to use and to give away to friends and family. I started canning the bread and butter pickles in quarts because I was using up too many pint jars on pickles. I have a zillion quart jars, but much fewer pint and half-pint jars. Pint and half-pint jars tend to be the size that stuff goes in that you give away, particularly jam, and there goes the jar…….. The only person I can count on to give me my jars back after she finishes whatever I gave her is Georgia. She’s an old-time home canner–she knows the value of a jar and she knows that I need it back so that I can give her something new in the jar.
Quart jars of bread and butter pickles.
With all the bread and butter pickling lately, I got curious about bread and butter pickles. Why are they called bread and butter pickles? A brief search led me to numerous websites all offering up one or the other of two theories. Either bread and butter pickles are so named because during the Depression, they were as common as bread and butter OR during the Depression people ate bread and butter with pickles because that was all they could afford. In either case, it appears to be a type of pickle popularized during the Depression era.
Bread and butter pickles are a happy combination of just enough sugar with just enough vinegar to be sweet but not cloying, and they’re very easy to make (and can). The store-bought variety seems to be the pickles only most of the time, but your home recipe usually comes with sliced onions along with the other usual suspects in a pickle recipe. Pickles are cheap. If you have a good cucumber year, that’s a lot of pickles. Many people during the Depression would have been growing their own gardens and had their own onions, too.
I have absolutely zero authority for this statement, but I suspect the second explanation (that people during the Depression ate pickles on buttered bread) is the correct one. Homemade bread, butter from the family cow, and pickles from the garden. I can see people down on their financial luck calling that lunch. Or at least a tasty snack. Calling them bread and butter pickles just because they’re common? Apple pie is common. Why don’t we have bread and butter pie? And so on.
To further shore up my meaningless assertion of this insignificant historical point, I buttered a piece of bread and put some pickles on it.
And ate it.
And it was quite tasty.
Now I’m an authority!
Or something. Anyway! Who wants a BBB today?
It’s a Ball Blue Book Project day! Today’s Ball Blue Book is sponsored by JeannieB in honor of her mother, Helen Sharpe Frazee.
For a chance to win: Leave a comment on this post and let me know you want it. You can just put (BBB) at the end of your comment or otherwise note that you want to be in the draw. One winner will be drawn by random comment number to receive a Ball Blue Book. Eligible entry cut-off is midnight Eastern (U.S.) time tonight (July 22). This post will be updated with the winner by 9 a.m. Eastern (U.S.) time tomorrow (July 23). Return to this post to claim your book if your name is drawn (or check the BBB Winners List).
Find out more about the Ball Blue Book Project and become a sponsor.
NOTE: You must be registered to comment. If you’re not registered, you can register here. If you’re already registered but not logged in, go here to log in.
UPDATE 07/23/11: The winning comment number, drawn by random.org, is comment #3, morningstar. Email me at CITRgiveaways@yahoo.com with your full name and address for shipping!
THIS GIVEAWAY IS CLOSED TO ENTRY.
Posted by Suzanne McMinn on July 22, 2011
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Me, I’m a dill pickle person, myself. My mother could not raise dill, I, myself, am dill challenged. The neighbor not only raised wonderful dill but made wonderful dill pickles. There was a lot of swapping going on. We traded pickle for pickle but water for the dill weed because her water had sulpher in it and when she wanted to make pickles, she needed different water. It probably really wasn’t a trade, just what neighbors do.
Mom also ate bread with her french fries, her family had that for supper when she was a girl many nights, she said. Yuk!
BBB, please.
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In answer to your question… I do, I DO!!! Pick me you rascally random picker. Thank you very much!
6:52
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BBB, please!!
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BBB, please.
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Thanks!
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BBB – no thanks.
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BBB please
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Yes, BBB please.
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{BBB}
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I would love to have a BBB. I have no home canned pickles. My cukes have burned to a crisp, and not crisp as in crispy pickles.
Thanks for the oportunity for a BBB.
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This has been the wierdest summer in a long time. Too cold, then much too hot and no rain. Haven’t seen many cucumbers and not as much squash or zuchs as usual so prices in farmer’s market are still high.
Suzanne, got anyone around who doesn’t have too many cucumbers and might trade you some other vegetable. If not, the goats would LOVE, LOVE to get some cucumbers, I bet.
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BBB for me please.
MN Mona
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Did you ask Georgia why they are called bread and butter pickles? I’m curious about what she would say.
BBB, please.
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BBB! Please
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sam
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Thanks for the chance for a BBB.
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Dianna
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Thanks Suzanne and JeannieB for another chance.
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Add me to the BBB please, just in case anything survives to be canned!
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in the PICKLE soon as I win!
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Thank you!
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BBB please!!!
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BBB me please!
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BnB, dill, relish, pickled beets, pickled okra and many more
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Would love to have a BBB…maybe I can make some pickles too.
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Send me a book!
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THIS GIVEAWAY IS CLOSED TO ENTRY.
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I make bread & butter, lime pickle, squash pickle, relish, pickled green tomatoes and dill pickles. I am a pickle fiend!
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