Growing up on a small farm, not big enough to support a family, we
raised all of our food. Beef, pork, chickens, and a huge garden which
I hated to work in at the time. Love my garden today.
My Mother canned corn, peas, carrots,tomatos, applesauce,beans, pork,
berries, jam, and beef. She did not have a pressure cooker but had a
large enamelware canner and a square boxlike container that held 18
quarts on two shelves. This had a pan-like bottom for water and was
heated on a kerosine cookstove. It certainly did not hold pressure
but the steam evidently heated the cans. She canned hundred of quarts
of all kinds of stuff this way and to my knowledge, nver had spoilage.
None of the family ever had food poisioning. Now I read that you must
heat to 240 degrees in a pressure cooker to can low acid materials.
What has changed? I can well remember cutting an entire beef into
small chunks to can when the weather turned to warm in the winter and
the beef, hanging in a corn crib, was in danger of spoilage. It got
canned in a BWB.