From Hoosier jars to beach sand, some of my favorite glass-related rabbit holes
An unofficial theme for me this month is containers.
Maybe it’s because I’m in the process of dividing the tangible objects that make up my life across two different continents (have you ever tried deciding which continent should house each part of your cookbook collection? It’s an emotionally trying experience).
The stakes are high in some ways: because if I put something in the wrong place, I won’t be able to access it again until I’m next in that country. But they’re low in other ways, since all of this stuff is still, technically, accessible, just not at all convenient.
This has led to adjustments and sweeping changes (another theme of this month/year), both in how I use objects, how I associate them with place, and my understanding of what objects are necessary or enjoyable versus just “important” through momentum: In other words, valued simply for having been around for a while, not even for sentimentality.
I’m sure I have many more essays in me about being a person who cooks, and who relies on specific objects to do her job and enjoy her life, and who also lives between two continents (and now that I’m done with all but the last round or two of edits on the giant preserving handbook, finding the time to write them will be much easier).
But for today, we’re thinking about glass.
And, to a lesser extent, about replication: Because one of the challenges of having strong preferences for culinary tools when you live in two places is the challenge of either hauling them back and forth, or buying a duplicate for one place or the other.
I dove down the rabbit hole of making this list while purchasing a second vintage Hoosier jar for my kombucha SCOBYs to bring to Ireland (I only store my SCOBY in Hoosier jars, in part because I’ve done it for about 25 years, and the wide mouths of the jars lend themselves to some beautiful SCOBY growth).
I call this an exploration list because it’s more of a ‘browse around and look at things’ compilation than a list of books and articles. I’m noticing more and more that my ‘reading lists’ tend towards being ‘multi-modal browsing lists’, though that’s kind of a clunky name for it. So for now at least, exploration list is the term we’re using.
So here are some of the things I’ve been reading, perusing, and playing with from the world of glass. As always, I welcome your additions in the comments!
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Exploration list: Glass
Glass history
We’re starting with Hoosier jars, the inspiration for this list, and working our way outward, beginning with the history of glass in Indiana (for readers not familiar with Hoosier jars/glass, it’s an American craftsmanship tradition from Indiana), including Coca Cola bottle’s birthplace in Terre Haute, also included in this High Museum exhibition.
Today there still is a company called Hoosier Glass, though they make architectural glass, not housewares.
And you can still find Hoosier jars, like my kombucha SCOBY hotels, for sale in antique stores or sometimes online: Or see examples in the Virtual Museum of Historic Bottles and Glass.
Speaking of museums, the Corning Museum of Glass is high on my museum bucket list, and a likely future visit since I have a surprising number of friends who work for Corning. They have demos and events, but also historic glass (I’d be especially interested in seeing examples of canning/preserving vessels, of course).
CMOG also has an Ask a Glass Question forum where you can learn, among other things, about the history of purple glass.
You can also learn about irradiated glass from The Glass Encyclopedia.
If you’re wondering why some mason jars are blue, it turns out it’s thanks to the mineral composition of the sand from the Hoosier Slide, a dune on Lake Michigan that no longer exists, thanks to our ancestors’ insatiable appetites for blue glass.
Glass manufacturing and care
During an elementary school field trip, I asked why old glass rippled, and was told “it’s because glass is actually a liquid, just a very thick one, so old glass ripples because it’s very slowly dripping.”
So is glass actually a liquid? The answer is well, yes and no.
But glass doesn’t ripple because it’s liquid: The ripples in glass are a result of different manufacturing processes.
This video of glass bottle manufacturing is surprisingly soothing: It shows each step of bottle production without any voice over, like ASMR but for people interested in industrial manufacturing processes (while researching this list I also discovered that same YouTube channel has a bunch of similar videos for various industrial processes: Good to keep in your back pocket if you want something to watch without narration).
There are also glass inspection checklists, and articles on the mineral composition of sand for glass production.
And finally, here’s a video showing examples of different types of wavy glass used for restoration.
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