Consternation has struck home canners on the Prairies this summer with
the discovery that the Bernardin company is no longer manufacturing the
78 millimetre Gem jars and the snap lids that seal them.
The company says the standard quart Gem jar is losing popularity with
home canners, so it is standardizing its sizes and will only produce
and supply lids for the standard 70 mm and the wide-mouth 86 mm sizes.
We’ve been getting reports that home canners have been unable to find
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snap lids for the Gems, and we’ve reported news of petitions, anxious
calls and irate e-mails to Bernardin.
Last year we reported an increase in home canning popularity, as
consumers realized the benefits and the control it gives them over food
content. That makes more surprising that a common jar and lid size has
been eliminated.
There will still be home canning, that old and clever process through
which nature’s sunshine is captured in jarred jewels for later
enjoyment.
But in support of prairie home canners and in aid of the Gem protest,
we offer this song, to be sung to the tune of You Are My Sunshine.
I had some Gem jars, ten thousand Gem jars.
When full on my shelves, I smiled all day.
But come this summer, there are no snap lids.
Please don’t take my snap lids away.
It was Bernardin, that old Bernardin
Who said the snap lids had no sway.
They fit the Gem jars, the lovely Gem jars
Please don’t take my snap lids away.
They said the jar size, the Gem-like jar size
Had small demand with canning sorts.
But if that’s so, dear, why is my basement
Full of Gem jars enough for a fort?
The other night, dear, I wasn’t sleeping
Because of stress caused by no lids.
I’ve searched the stores and malls and yard sales
Now I won’t have canned fruit for my kids.
I have a garden, it’s full of veggies
It has cucumbers and rows of beets.
But will this bounty become my pickles?
Or will home canning go down to defeat?
Please keep the snap lids, the clever snap lids
That fit my Gem jars snug and tight.
‘Cause if my garden crop is wasted,
Bernardin, you are in for a fight.
