She would constantly stir it because you had to be careful not to burn the sauce. After about three or four hours the tomato sauce would turn into tomato paste. Then she would can the paste in jars for future use. My grandmother would take the tomato sauce and tomato paste and combine them and make a real nice, thick sauce.

We also used to pickle peppers in five-gallon crock-pots. We would pack the peppers in one on top of another, but not too hard, just lay them down nice and even. We would then fill the jar up to the top with half vinegar and half water, just enough to cover the pepper s.

Then we would get a board that fit inside the crock-pot, put it on top of the peppers, and put a rock on top of the board to hold the peppers down. This way the peppers would always be submerged in the mixture of vinegar and water. We would save these peppers for whenever we needed them.

We'd do the same thing with cherry peppers. We used to pickle the small cherry peppers. Most of the time we would pickle them whole. Other times we would cut them in half, remove the seeds and par fry them in olive oil- just enough to blanch them. Then we would put them in mason jars and fill them with the same oil we used for par frying.

We would also buy red-hot, long-finger peppers. These were different from cherry peppers. We would take a needle and thread, string it through the root stem, and hang it up to dry outdoors. When it was completely dry and brittle, we would chop it up and make an omelet with egg, onion, peppers, and sausage. Boy was that good and hot! We'd chase it down with cool red wine. I can just taste it now. It was very good on cold winter days.

We would also buy pork butts and intestines from the local butcher and make Italian sausage. We would hang it up to dry and preserve it for future use.