Some of my favorite Ball jars sit on my Hoosier cabinet and contain sand from memorable vacations.
How it all began:
I am far from denying, so very far from denying that I am addicted. See, I know that I have a problem, I am more than willing to admit my love of the mason jar. Yet it is not the average, “I love me some mason jar crafts” obsession. Even though I am not beyond raiding my canning shelves to use them for crafts, that is not my true passion with them. Take a look in my pantry and you will see I store many items in my mason jars, from chocolate chips to baking soda. It is more elementary than even that though, it’s the true art of canning that has me head over heals and I am here to share it with you. From working my way through the 1902 Ball Jar Blue Book to creating my own recipes I love to put my experiences on the blog for others to try and discuss.
My canning adventures started around four years ago when I was just married, student teaching and using a kitchen that was right around 40 sq. ft. Learning to cook while being tight on a budget and space was a blessing, I learned some valuable lessons in those first months, including canning anything I wanted to last longer than a few days in the fridge. I started with some mason jars, old cook books, and a lot of gumption. There were lots of fails, messes and calls to Mom and Grandma to figure out what the heck I thought I was doing....oh and a very loving, patient husband.
I thought for the first post I would give some mason jar history. The Ball mason style jar is like Kleenex and Crayola, companies that are so dominate in their field that their name are always synced with the product they create. John Mason is the maker of the canning jar that has a lid made out of zinc. The Ball brothers are the ones who brought their bottling and canning company to Muncie, Indiana to produce glass canning jars for the everyday user. Together they have created the jar we know as the mason Ball jar.
10 important points in the history of canning jars:
1. Late 1700’s, Napoleon offers handsome reward for the person who can find a way to preserve food for the French military that was better than the common drying and salting methods of the day.
2. 1810-Nicholas Appert creatively comes up with an early form of the canning jar, where you sealed food in a jar using heating and cooling methods. The lid however had to seal with wax and wire, it was messy and didn’t work well.
Canned chicken stock in mason jars are always in my pantry.
Ball jars in my water bath canner.
3. 1858- Many people tried to improve from this idea including a man named John Mason. He used a glass jar with a threaded zinc cap. This process was more reliable and the parts were reusable.
4. 1869 (crazy to think this is when my northern Indiana house was being built) Mason added a key component to his early design, a rubber ring. This created a seal that proved to be very effective.
5. 1886- Not quite 20 years later the Mason jar patent is expired and a variety of competition hits the scene. Including four brothers with the last name Ball of Buffalo, New York. They were working with metal cans, but moved to glass when Mason’s patent ended starting the first Ball jars. Their business took off and soon they had plants set up in Muncie, Indiana. In 1918 the brothers establish a college in the same town today Ball State University has around 16,00 undergraduates, go cardinals! Their large number of jars made is why the names Ball jar and Mason are thought of together.
The Ball Brothers
6. 1902- ( Seven years before the first Ball Jar Blue Book was published.) Evan though by this time Mason Ball jar is a house-hold name, John Mason passes away with not much to his name. Around this time Alexander Kerr creates the wide mouth jars. He also creates lids with a rubber gasket attached making the canning process a lot easier.
7. 1915- To improve his invention even more Kerr creates the separate lid and threaded ring. The idea is after the jar is sealed the threaded ring is removed to keep from having bacteria or moisture ruining the seal.
8. 1939-1949 Families in America during WWII were introduced to the idea of growing their own food in their backyard, this resulted in the purchase of 3 million canning jars in a 10 year period. During the great depression the Ball Company never laid off one single employee.
9. 1950-1990 Soon after this many families started to rely on bigger refidgerators and freezers to preserve their food and canning went on a delcline.
10. 1994-2014 sources such as the National Center for Home Food Preservation have tried to bring relevant information for modern day canning. Websites like Pinterest contain endless ideas to remake your grandma’s basement full of mason ball jars into anything but a way to keep veggies fresh till January. This year the Ball Company will celebrate their 130th anniversary!
Can you spot the Ball logo?
If you need more visuals go check out this video below at Marthastewart.com : http://www.marthastewart.com/article/history-of-ball-jars#ooid=c4cXZlMjr5EqN8yz2DEv6UuzErzjw8vP