91-year-old Canner, Henrietta Truh

Getting into the Business of Canning

At the age of 83, Henri Truh had a commercial kitchen installed in her home so she could can large quantities of vegetables and fruits for her Tru-d-lites business.

by Donna Palmlund

Henrietta (Henri) Truh sells her canned vegetables at two farmers markets a week during July-September.The De Smet Farmers Market can be found just off the intersection of US Highway 14 and South Dakota Highway 25 on Thursday afternoons from early July through the end of September. That’s where ninety-one-year-old Henrietta (Henri) Truh can be found with her tables of canned foods at the back of her Ford Explorer.
    On Wednesdays, she loads up the tables and jars of canned produce and heads the Explorer toward Salem Farmers Market, about 46 miles away from her home in .  Both of the small markets are about 30 miles in the opposite directions of her home in Carthage.
    She is well known in this part of South Dakota for her canning and baking skills and has become a perennial favorite of customers at the farmers markets. In turn, she likes dealing with the local customers as well as the pheasant hunters and tourists traveling through the area.
    “You sure get to meet a lot of nice people,” she said.  

Canning becomes a business

Henri has canned produce for more than eight decades, first learning to do so at age ten or eleven under her mother’s supervision. She took over the family canning responsibilities after her mother had a new baby.
As a child, Henri also milked cows, worked in the fields, did housework, and helped look after her younger sister. She had to leave school when her was needed even more at home by the time she had completed the eighth grade at age 12.
“I didn’t know what the word play meant,” she said.
Six years later, she was able to reenter high school and finish her education. One of her  freshman classes was home economics, which required a series of lessons about canning. She recalls going home from school and telling her mother that she had just “learned” how to can tomatoes, which brought both of them to laughter. Henri already knew her way around the kitchen through years of experience.
At age 83, Henri decided she wanted to have a commercial kitchen installed, so a new room was planned and built as a separate addition to her existing house. The new kitchen included five large sinks, a large refrigerator, a restaurant-sized stove with twin ovens, and adequate shelving for storing pots, utensils, canning equipment and jars of finished products. A large work table was special-built for her by the Glendale Hutterite Colony in Frankfort, S.D.
She was asked why she would invest in such equipment, “Everybody’s got to have a hobby,” she replied.Henri Truh's canning hobby turned into a business after she had a commercial kitchen built onto her home at age 83. Among the 900-plus jars canned this season, at age 91, under her own "Tru-d-ites" label were a variety of vegetables and her famous dill pickles stuffed with hot peppers.
Henri’s hobby became a business, which she named Tru-d-lites, a play on her last name. Her kitchen quickly got busy. She says the business took off a lot more than she expected it to do.
“People are ready for home-made products, whether they are canned, baked or sewn,” she said.
Like all commercial kitchens in South Dakota, Henri’s kitchen is inspected twice annually. Commercial kitchens have to meet state standards for sanitation and safety regulations to keep their licenses.
The only problem Henri now sees with her kitchen is its size. She wishes it was bigger, and she has advice for anyone thinking of adding a commercial kitchen.
“Build it twice as big as you think you are going to need. ”

Specializing in pickles

Canning vegetables and fruits may be routine to Henri, but she excels in pickles and makes several different kinds. In 2011, she canned more than 900 jars of dill pickles alone. One of her specialties, and a favorite with local customers and tourists alike, is dill pickles stuffed with hot peppers.
There isn’t much she doesn’t can. In addition to pickles and her home-made sauerkraut, she puts up seasonal produce as it become available – cauliflower, pickled garlic, peppers, pickled beets, eggplant and many other vegetables, along with fruits and her uniquely flavored jams and jellies.
Some of the produce she uses for Tru-d-lites products comes from her son’s big garden. However, she buys most of the raw produce from the Pearl Creek Hutterite Colony, located near Iroquois, S.D.
“They have good stuff,” she said.
Henri offers customized canning for customers who bring in their own produce, often with their own favorite recipes for her to use. She will accommodate the customer accordingly.
“If I can’t find a recipe, “she said, “I make up one of my own. Recipes are only guidelines.”
Henri is also known for her baked goods. She fills custom orders every week for about a dozen pies, many cookies and often for apple kutchen – a German coffee cake that is the official state dessert of South Dakota. Although her baking is by special order, she usually takes a few goodies along to the markets. 
In addition to all the cooking she does, she also uses another of the life-long skills she learned as a child. She embroiders tea towels depicting Laura Ingalls Wilder themes.
Her tea towels are sold in the gift shop of the Laura Ingalls Wilder Pageant Society, which was formed to preserve Laura’s legacy. The annual Pageant is held three weekends in July in De Smet, which has several of the landmarks and preserved buildings mentioned in Wilder’s books and on the “Little House on the Prairie” television series.

Adding life to years, years to life

Henri attributes her longevity to the fact that she makes all of her meals from scratch.
“I’ve stayed on this earth so long because I’ve never made a meal from a box – don’t know how,” she said.
This busy lady shows no signs of slowing down. She loves to can and bake, and she plans to keep doing both for as long as possible.
“It’s not work when you are doing something people appreciate,” she explained.


~ Donna Palmlund is a staff writer/photographer for The De Smet News in De Smet, S.D., in which much of this article about Henri Truh first appeared. Thanks to Donna for expanding on her original article and to Dale Blegen, publisher/owner of The De Smet News, for permitting us to share Donna’s photos and information with FMT readers.

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Well, if that don't inspire ya, I don't know what will!!!!