This question touched me in rather the same way as last fall's question to
the list about what to include in a 1950s Christmas exhibit, as it brought
back memories. (Warning! Lengthy response!)

My mother used to make jams and jellies from fresh fruit in the 1950s and
60s. She would sterilize glass jelly jars by placing them upside down in a
pan of boiling water, when ready she'd fill the jars with the preserves, and
seal them with a layer of paraffin wax before putting the cover on.

Basically, if the anaerobic seal stays intact and does its job, the
preserves are no more or less dangerous than if they were sitting on your
kitchen shelf.

That said, recently I found a can of pineapple tucked in the back on one of
my kitchen shelves where the metal had expanded due to internal pressure and
could've burst (gee, it was only a few years past its use date!). Somehow
the seal had failed and the contents began to decay and ferment. Also, I had
a metal can of V8 juice, never opened, also way past its expiration date,
which being acidic, had corroded around the bottom seal and leaked out.
(Obviously, I need to pay more attention to the cans of food in my
cupboard!)

On the other hand, consider wines and champagnes that stay safely in their
glass bottles, under very high pressure, for decades without bursting.

To elaborate a bit more:

I don't know the "shelf life" of preserves. Perhaps someone involved with
historic foodways can help, or a registered dietician, or a home economics
teacher, or some one at your local county extension office.

I doubt there is any off-gassing. The only off-gassing I can think of that
might occur would be if the rubber seals/rings deteriorate; I don't know if
that would produce any bad products such as sulfur.

As for any possible dangers they might present to people or other objects,
as long as they stay sealed to maintain their internal anaerobic
environment, and stored, preferably, in a cool, dark environment, they don't
constitute a danger in and of themselves by just sitting on a shelf
somewhere.

Careless handling is a "danger". If any containers are glass and are
dropped, then there is a mess, same as spill in a kitchen. Or if they are
metal cans and are dropped and dented, then I would discard them because
there is a good chance after being dropped that any anaerobic seal is apt to
be broken, allowing future deterioration of the products as described below.

Problems arise if the seal is broken, allowing air in, which naturally
carries a variety of bacteria, which would then start decomposition/decay,
and possibly fermentation, which could lead to production of gas and
pressure and failure of the container (bursting).

Occasionally, when I would take the lid off a jar of my mother's jam, I
would find that some of the juice had leaked out past the was seal and
pooled on top of the wax plug, and mold would be growing on the juice. We'd
just carefully wash that off with hot water, remove the wax (breaking the
seal with the tip of a sharp knife), remove any bits of mold in the jam if
there were any (it seemed to form a self-contained pocket), and then use the
jam. I'm still here to tell the tale, so obviously a bit of mold didn't make
the entire jar of jam unfit for human consumption (the high sugar content is
a type of preservative in that it discourages growth of various airborne
"critters").

Last thought on dangers to people posed by the preserves: While the food
might still be good, I wouldn't recommend testing that hypothesis at this
point. '-)

Nancy Powell



----- Original Message -----
From: "Erin Crissman" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Tuesday, February 17, 2004 4:08 PM
Subject: Preserving preserves?


> Does anyone out there have preserves in their collection?  I read the
> posting a while ago regarding the last jar of peaches from gettysburg, but
I
> need a little bit of a different solutuion.
>
> We have about 20-30 jars of various preserves (jelly, beans, pears, etc)
> that were made by the last family member who lived at Cherry Hill. THe
jars
> date from the late 1950s to early 1960s. We would just pitch them, but our
> collections policy states that everything in the house in 1963 (when the
> last family member died) is part of our collection. We can deaccession
> things if they no longer have interpretive value (ex. crumbled
celluloid --
> which is also a fire hazard) or are dangerous to other parts of the
> collection.
>
> The preserves have been stored in the basement and I need to move them out
> of that space.  They seem to be in ok condition and are in a variety of
> containers some with rubber rings and glass lids with bails, others in
more
> modern containers with a metal lid and ring.  some have lids that have
come
> off--but have a quite thick layer of wax that seems to be providing an
> airtight seal.
>
> My questions are:
>
> When do I need to be concerned about the stability of the contents?
> Is there anything I can do to prolong their lives?
> When should I deaccession them?
> What kind of environment should they be stored in?  We have a new
> collections storage facility but I am somewhat hesitant to keep them there
> in case of offgassing, etc. Are they hazardous to other objects and/or
> people?
>
> Thanks!
>
> Erin Crissman
> Curator
> Historic Cherry Hill
> 523 1/2 South Pearl St Albany, NY 12202
> phone.   518.434.4791
> fax.     518.434.4806
> email.   [log in to unmask]
> website. www.historiccherryhill.org
>
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