I recently was getting rid of clutter and came upon our old farm freezer, a Unico double chest model FF201. On a whim, I fed it some energy and it came right back to life and began cooling down! I lingered for a moment and then disconnected the power and let it flat line, again.

My parents purchased this freezer about 1950. This was our main means for food storage during the 1950s and 1960s. We always had a considerable sized vegetable garden. To give you an idea of the size, Dad would always plant about 40 early tomato plants, along with 80 Big Boy tomato plants. This way we would enjoy tomatoes early, but have the meatier Big Boys for canning in the fall.

Canning was an all-day event. Family and neighbors would gather and the fun began. Bushels of tomatoes would be picked and taken to the kitchen. The ladies would begin boiling and preparing the tomatoes for a variety of items such as stewed tomatoes, tomato sauce, green tomato relish, and so on. The canning jars would all need to be washed and boiled to insure both sanitary needs as well as providing a good seal once the food was placed inside, the lid tightly sealed, and allowed to cool.

This was extremely hot labor in August as there was no air conditioning back then, only window fans and hopefully a cool breeze. Most of the other daily different items were prepared in our kitchen. To mention a few, corn relish, dill pickles, bread and butter pickles, sweet pickles, sweet relish, pickled beets, and so on.
These canned goods filled a wall cabinet in our basement which could hold over 120 quarts. The final products also were divided up between the people doing the work so everyone enjoyed the fruits of their labor.

The freezer did provide additional storage for green beans, yellow waxed beans, green peppers, and more to be eaten when the weather changed and the gardens died off until the next spring when the process was initiated all over again.

The main use of the freezer was to hold meat. We would purchase a Black Angus calf in the spring to graze and grain until fall. It would then become the steaks, roasts, and ground meat we ate. And, if we had a good small game and deer hunting season, there would be some rabbit, partridge, quail, pheasant, and venison, too. To round out the meat, a pig was normally purchased and turned into ham, bacon, sausage, roasts, and chops. We had raised chickens, but decided it was more economical to purchase them.

This concept of farm to table, or let’s say the phrase, came into vogue about twenty years ago, but in reality, it was simply a way of life for decades, even centuries. One hundred years ago there were no supermarkets like the ones of the day. There were small, neighborhood butcher shops and groceries which offered the items which could be supplied by the community farms.

I have to admit, I sincerely miss the flavor and quality of the foods I grew up on. And always try and purchase fresh vegetables from local farmers. Yes, we have a wide variety of everything today in these huge markets and have become quite dependent on them to supply our wants and needs. But, something has to be said for the “old” days, however, because we never had empty shelves during a pandemic. Because we did for ourselves and planned ahead.