Old Fashioned Food Preservation

When Arthur and I moved back to the farm where he spent his early childhood, we came upon an old piece of equipment, stored in the attic, that he identified as a food dehydrator..
It was a sheet metal box with shelves of hardware cloth, designed to sit upon the type of natural gas space heaters common in the mid-twentieth century. He remembers it being put to use by his great-grandmother who used it to dry apples. He also remembers fondly a dried apple cake and I need to find that recipe to share with you.
Thanks to our future daughter-in-law Jen, we have been introduced to newer ways to dehydrate fruits and vegetables.

Dehydrated peppers, tomatoes and calendula from my pantry

Our Nesco/American Harvest dehydrator features stackable plastic trays with a base-mounted fan. We have used it to dehydrate herbs, hot peppers and tomatoes to store for future use.

Calendula flowers prepared for drying