The canning of foods will sterilise and seal the contents so that they will be preserved for future use. Food is place into glass or tin containers and then hermetically sealed. These are then heated so as to destroy the micro-organisms that spoil the foods. It is a process which was first invented in the early 19th Century and is still very popular today. Many products which we buy at the store are canned to preserve their freshness. Canning has always been a very popular way to increase the shelf life of products at home and there are many companies who produce specialist jars for this purpose. One of the longest standing manufacturers of canning equipment is Kerr. Not only have they produced their glass jars since the early 1900s but they have published Kerr Canning recipes in their highly respected books.
During the depression, canning became a vital part of every day life, with many people dependant on the preservation of foods for the winter months. Kerr set up an educational program to teach the principle of canning and to show how the process could ensure a steady food supply even when fruit and vegetables were out of season and difficult to get hold of. They had promotional cars which toured the country giving advice and advertising their products. Many small books were distributed to housewives showing the science of canning and giving Kerr canning recipes for them to use at home.
As a part of their drive to bring canning into our homes, Kerr also gave many demonstrations of canning techniques and even installed some model kitchens in the 1930s. The company did an excellent job in capitalising on the great depression. The timing was good for Kerr as many people were suffering from job losses and reduced incomes and were finding that times were hard. The preservation of food was becoming an important fact of life and as a relatively new company, they were able to establish their glass canning products as being indispensable. The Kerr canning recipes were a tremendous help to many people during the depression and enabled families to preserve foods much more easily and with increased safety.
Kerr were marketing two main products; the economy jar and the self-sealing mason jar. The latter was well known for its two piece lid. As these could create a vacuum at the neck of the jars, canning could easily be done in the home and Kerr Canning recipes became a great success.
The jars are still available today, although the original plant in Sand Springs Oklahoma was closed when the company was bought by Ball-Incon in 1991. Ball has continued to produce their canned food recipe book and it is still possible to get hold of the book of Kerr Canning recipes from second hand book stores and on the internet.
