Preserving Today

by Jeanne Lesem

Book Overview

A former food editor takes a new look at the age-old tradition of putting up fruits and vegetables against the coming winter. Lesem shows how to make various sauces, jellies, pickles, and more to spice up everyday meals. She creates innovative flavors using the food processor, the microwave, and the freezer. Also, she sprinkles her book with quotations from old almanacs, diaries, newspapers, and cookbooks to bring a lovely bit of nostalgia to the...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0394586530
• ISBN13: 9780394586533
• Release Date: March 1992
• Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf
• Length: 264 Pages
• Weight: 0.75 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.2" x 7.0" x 10.1"

Customer Reviews

Great Reference

This book contains hundreds of recipes for jams, conserves, and pickles. The book begins with a short introductory section covering canning, freezing, and storing preserves. It also includes a market guide, with tips on how to select the best fruits and vegetables for canning. The following chapters cover jams, jellies, and marmalades, fruit butters and spreads, pickles and relishes, chutneys and condiments, sauces, and recipes using preserves. There is also a short chapter on making fruit-flavored alcoholic beverages. Interspersed with the recipes are short informative or whimsical quotes from classic cookbooks or literature, as well as some very useful tips. End material includes a glossary, a source list, a bibliography, and an index. Lesem points out that with today's smaller families, nobody wants dozens of jars of anything anymore, so her recipes are designed to create small batches with a minimum of fuss. Where feasible, she includes microwave instructions as well as stove instructions, and notes which method makes more sense for the recipe. Each recipe includes suggestions for the best method of storage (freezing, refrigeration, or canning, and for how long). Lesem also notes which recipes are easily doubled or halved, and what kinds of substitutions or variations work well. In addition to recipes for standard fruits such as strawberries and tomatoes, she also includes many recipes for lesser known fruits, such as quinces and guavas. Lesem states that her recipes use far less sugar than usual; she recommends only the minimum required for safe food preservation so that the flavor of the fruit remains sharp. Lesem's goal is to achieve superior taste and/or produce preserves that cannot be (easily) purchased. Thus, she focuses on small yields using small amounts of fruit, which can often be found in the grocery store or farmer's market. The book is clearly not aimed at home gardeners trying to deal with massive amounts of produce all coming ripe at once. Nevertheless, by doubling (or even quadrupling) her recipes, or by trying several different recipes for the same ingredients, you should still be able to preserve your bumper crops with this book. Overall, I've found her recipes to be easy to follow, and her tips about individual recipes to be invaluable.