Drinking the hipster way

by Michael Smith (Veshengro)

There definitely was a time when you used a jam jar or other glass jar as a drinking vessel you were looked down upon and was surely regarded as being seriously poor or a strange eccentric.

Jam jars and other glass jars were the common drinking vessels of the poorer classes for many, many decades and more and the very term of “having a jar”, referring to having a drink, even in the pub, probably originates from that. More than likely they even brought their own appropriate jars to the pub.

Robert Tressell in his book “The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists” mentions on more than one occasion, I believe, of the workers drinking their tea during their break from jam (glass) jars.

When I was a child drinking glasses in our home were reserved for guest and all the family, though especially the children, drank from glass jars of various sizes for various purposes. Cheaper also to give children a jam jar, for instance, and have him drop that and break it – at least in those days – that a real drinking glass which would cost money to replace.

Personally I have kept this habit and my (personal) drinking glasses are all reused glass jar of different types and kinds and even the water bottle that I use by my desk is a glass jar, in that case a reused Bockwurst glass from Aldi.

Nowadays it has become the hipster thing to do to drink from glass jars (again) and many fashionable bars and coffee shops serve cold beverages and smoothies in glass jars to their customers.

But, hold it! No ordinary reused jar will do. No way, Jose! It has to be Mason jars. And they do the same at home but also there, in their own four walls, it has to be bought Mason jars. Reusing jam jars they could not possibly do. What would others think. Empty jars are for the recycling bin. One has to do one's part as to recycling. It would not do to reuse those jars. (Sorry, my sarcasm has got the better of me again.)

As drinking from glass jars – canning jars – has become so very trendy why not go the reuse route and make use of those that come with the products you buy.. After all you have paid for them through the purchase price. Much better for your wallet and for the Planet than buying – rather expensive – canning jars for the same purpose.

© 2018

Let's have a jar

by Michael Smith (Veshengro)

Let's have a jar is often heard as a statement among the working classes in Britain when they talk about having a beer.

I am now going out on a limb to say that this saying originates with the fact that the people used to use, well, yes, glass jars as drinking vessels as they did not have the money to buy drinking glasses.

Still today in the American backwoods the moonshiner may offer you a jar of his finest and you can bet that the jar is just that, namely a small glass jar used as a glass. And why not?

It is amazing how, I find, by just looking closer at a common phrases in a language we can come to understand their possible origin and it was common in the early part still of the twentieth century, and even until about the late 1950s (and later still probably) to find homes in the countryside using only repurposed glass jars as everyday drinking vessels. After all they can free with stuff you bought.

Maybe, in this time of recession and austerity (and the recession, despite the claims of being over is far from so), it is time to rediscover this kind of frugality (I have never given it up, mind you) and make use of such things in our daily lives rather than spending money on glasses.

While, today, it is true, drinking glasses and such can be had for little money but a Pound is still a Pound to me and I rather have it in my pocket than in the form of a glass and the ones to repurpose I have paid for anyway by buying the stuff that was in it. Why should I throw it away, even if it is the recycling bin?

Let's rethink waste and think frugality...

© 2013

Using glass for food storage

Using glass containers for food storage instead of plastic

by Michael Smith (Veshengro)

When advocating glass containers for storing foods, including leftovers in the fridge, it always amazes me that most people today cannot think further than their wallet.

Invariably there will always be a number of people who will chip in that they would love to change from plastic containers to glass ones but that it is too expensive.

We seem to have become so orientated – or should I say brainwashed – towards consumption that even people wish to think of themselves as “green”, and as “homesteaders” even, cannot think further than buying.

Instead of looking at how much something we need or want costs we should first of all consider as to whether we can reuse or repurpose something for it or make it ourselves by means of upcycling or otherwise.

When it comes to glass containers for use to store food and leftovers I am sure everyone, like myself, has a fair number of glass jars coming into the home on a weekly basis filled with this or that, and in many different sizes; the ideal candidates for storage jars.

Far too many today cannot see, or so at least it would appear, further than their own noses and rather toss such jars into the recycling bin and then look at buying new jars in which to store food.

And then they say that they would like to change from plastic to glass but cannot see how they could afford it as glass is expensive.

I find it amazing that apparently so many people can no longer think straight like our parents and grandparents did. No glass jar from pickles, jam, mustard, etc. was ever thrown out. They would be used again and again. The attitude was – and they understood the fact – of our old ones was that they had paid for those jars in the purchase price and were going to put them to use, and that indeed they did.

The kitchen and the larder were full of different sized reused glass jars holding all manner of dry foods, etc., such as beans, peas, rice, pasta, flour, sugar, coffee, tea, you name it, and that was just in those two places, and as far as food storage goes.

Such glass jars also were employed to hold buttons and other things for sewing projects, seeds for the garden, nuts, bolts, screws, washers, and much, much more, and oh, candy (most important for a child).

Reuse of everything was the norm back then and that not just for glass jars. Biscuit tins, cigar boxes, show boxes and much more, all found a second or third use. But, since the last two decades of the twentieth century, or thereabouts, most seem to have lost this mindset and can only think of buying what they want and need.

© 2013