Canned meat

Oh, canned meat, how I miss thee.  And I'm not talking about the kind you buy in the store either.  Or whatever it is they call Spam, barf.  I'm talking about what our family considered a delicacy when Grandma Great was still at home and canned meat.  Just the thought of it makes my mouth water.

For some odd reason, Grandma Great and I were talking about canned meat a couple days ago.  When my Madolyn was about two years old, our family had a hog butchered and kept some chunks of pork to can.  Madolyn, my mom and I spent the day with Grandma Great as she showed us how it was done.  I was there the entire time and cannot even begin to tell you the first step!

Yum-Yum

So before you get all grossed out at the thought, this canned pork was absolutely a) delicious and b) very handy.  In just a few minutes, you could open a jar or two of meat, peel and cut potatoes and have it cooking on the stove.  The flavor the pork gave to the potatoes was sooo tasty.  It was always a treat to have pork and potatoes at grandma's house.

Sorry, you'll have to turn your head.

I also remember eating sausage patties that had been canned, and they were pretty yummy too.  Grandma went on to tell me how her mother, Jess, would cook sausage patties, stack them in special crocks and then pour a good 'ole lard mixture over the top to preserve them.  As she needed sausage patties, she would reach in and grab them and the lard mixture would cover back over the top of the remaining patties.  The lard would thicken and solidify and protect the patties.  Doesn't that sound lovely!?  I wonder how well-received that idea would be now.  Ha. 

None of it looked too appetizing in the glass jar, but after you tasted that canned meat, you were hooked.  There is not one single thing I have had since that has tasted quite like it.  My uncle asked me about canned pork a few weeks ago.  I'm wondering if we should team up and attempt this process again.  I really wish I would have paid more attention at my last canning lesson. What I wouldn't give to have a couple jars of Grandma's canned pork in my cabinet right now...