LB°18 Artists

ARKIV

Pickled food

Pickled food, 1950–2022, Norrbottens museums archive

Acknowledging the often localised craft, skill and knowledge of self preserving food, jars of pickled food borrowed from the collections of Norrbottens museum will be shown at Havremagasinet, Länskonsthall.

In 2006, Norrbottens museum received an unusual donation: an entire home from Norrbotten. There was a large quantity of jars and bottles of pickled and preserved foodstuffs in the food cellar. All the jars and bottles had labels indicating the contents and the year they were prepared. There were berries, mushrooms, jam, marmalade, pig’s trotters, fruit punch, and wine dated from the 1950s to the 90s. The museum analysed the food’s nutritional properties and microbiology, with the analysis showing that the contents of the jars were fully edible and nutritionally equivalent to produce sold in shops today. The craft that went into preserving this food allowed it to be stored without reliance on electric refrigeration. This knowledge is gradually passing into oblivion due to the normalised, everyday usee of energy hungry fridges and freezers.