Svacina Project

Sometimes when you start to think about a subject, you notice more and more references in the world to it. Suddenly it's randomly brought up in conversations, you might see signs for it, or run across it in a store or in the media. So it's been these last few weeks for me with canning. After two family reunions, visits with cousins, and a trip to the farmers market on my way through Luling, I amassed quite a pantry full of items, more than I've ever had at one time. And such diversity, which really speaks to the bounty of Texas in the different areas that my relatives live, their personal tastes, and what's traditional to their family. I ended up with 16 jars of different things. Above are pickled beets (Don and Gladys Orsak from our Orsak reunion), hot dill pickles from Mikesh Produce in Luling, pear butter (cousin Ann Adams in Floresville), and apricot habanero jelly, made by cousin Rose Cofer and won in the silent auction at the Morkovsky reunion in Hallet

I rarely watch television, but in the last few weeks, both my sons and I have seen several episodes of Chef's Table on Netflix. My favorite is about the chef Magnus Nilsson and his restaurant Fäviken in Jämtland, Sweden. Nilsson created a menu that drew almost exclusively from ingredients that could be foraged or grown and raised on the land and in the waters near the restaurant. Since the area is covered in snow for months of the year, dishes utilize produce and meat preserved in various ways, from pickling, storing in a root cellar, and salting and drying. Nilsson also researched and wrote the massive Nordic Cookbook , in which he collected recipes from home cooks from all over Scandinavia and other countries. I know, of course, that my Texas Czech great grandmothers (and even one more generation back) also foraged for and grew and raised what they ate every day. But I never knew them, so have no direct knowledge of what they grew, or how they cooked what they grew. No recipe