Was my grandmother rebellious?

We just opened our last jar of homemade, home-canned apricot jam. Jam is one of our favourite bread toppings and I love making my own. There's an abundance of fruits here during the spring/summertime, and apricots are just one of the many fruits that we make jam with. This is what my grandmother always did; even though the fruits available for her were a bit more limited, as apricots aren't native in the Netherlands, so she probably just used strawberries, raspberries, rosehips, or prunes. Either way, making jam was one of the things she always did during the summer. Even my own mother did this a lot (even though in the 1990s, store bought jam became the norm). There was a huge field near our house where we'd pick gooseberries and blackberries, with permission of the orchards owners, and then she made a big supply of jam which lasted quite a while. We also grew strawberries in the garden some years, but I can't really remember whether my mum turned those into jam. 

Not only is this a fun thing to do -for me anyhow-, I also think it's important to learn the old fashioned ways of preserving foods and re-learning old fashioned skills that are nearly forgotten. With all the insecurities people face these days, it's good to have a food supply that will last when you're having a financial tough situation. And it's just nice to know how to process your produce yourself, if your neighbour gifts you a massive amount of fruit that you at least know what to do with it (that happens so often here!). It's also a good way to save money. All these skills combined is probably what makes people admire grandmothers in general, and which is the very reason why people talk about "granny hobbies"... I found out a bit too late that this really is a thing, and if it weren't because of social media, I probably still wouldn't have a clue about it. And I actually have quite a few "granny hobbies".

The thing is, however, that while some people are romantizing their grandmothers lifestyles, there's something I just don't really get. And that is the way how most of our grandmothers did their canning, is suddenly labelled as "rebel canning". I don't know if this is another social media fad, but all I do know is that some people are going overboard with certain aspects of food safety. This means that not only my grandmother's method of the canning itself is not "approved", it's even the kind of jars she used- apparently Weck jars aren't considered safe enough, despite everyone used them for decades. Heck, in Dutch we even say "wecken" which simply means "to can", referring to the old trusty Weck jars... What I don't really get is that the reason for some people to home-can is because a lack of trust in the way the industry is preserving and processing foods -something I honestly get, but then going overboard when it comes to food safety when processing yourself. 

Let me be clear- I'm not claiming this is the absolute truth, or that you should start to "rebel can" if that makes you uncomfortable. But I honestly trust my grandmother more than any official government guideline, and if that makes me rebellious, so be it. Who would have thought that rebellion, in 2024, means canning food the way your grandmother did? 😃