In the 1940s and 1950s, the company International Harvester had a fictional spokesperson named Irma Harding (much like the beloved Betty Crocker). She was the face of their refrigeration division and helped women across the country learn to prepare food for the fridge, freezer, and the canning pot.
In recent years, Irma Harding was mostly forgotten, but in a new book by Marilyn McCray, her memory has been heartily revived. Canning, Pickling, and Freezing with Irma Harding
is a volume that serves up the history of Irma herself, along with chapters detailing a number of food preservation techniques.
Each chapter features both a words of wisdom from Irma, along with relevant and up-to-date information about how to safely pickle, jam, can, ferment, and freeze food. Many sections also have useful line drawings instead of pictures for illustration. They are both whimsically vintage in look, but entirely accurate.
If you want a little dose of canning history with your instructions and recipes, this book would make for a fun addition to your preserving library.
Oh! This is great!! I love cookbooks but I really fall for old, written by cooks from time gone by…. As a person of Norwegian heritage I prize a very old paperback cookbook of old country recipes of foods gathered or grown in and around home and it is written in English! This offer, Canning, Pickling and Freezing sounds delightful too… thank you!
There is also a Irma Harding 2015 Calendar on Amazon.com.