Beginner's Guide To Preserving

Nice Primer If You Aren't Sure Of Where To Start

The Beginners Guide To Preserving: Safely Can, Ferment, Dehydrate, Salt, Smoke, and Freeze Food by Delilah Snell

If you really are a beginner at preserving I strongly recommend picking up a copy of The Ball Blue Book. It is updated often. When I first became interested in putting up food I read many books. Out of all of them, I use my Ball Blue Book nearly 100% of the time.

What this book has that the Ball Blue Book does not, is guidance on salting & smoking food. It even mentions kombucha which is awesome. I think kombucha is one of the best tasting & easiest to make fermented beverages you can drink. I've been making my own for close to two decades. There is a recipe for salted egg yolks that I made using smoked sea salt. After trying this, I decided the best way I like to preserve my eggs is by pickling them. Now that I'm older, I tend to consume more salt, but even this was much too salty for me.

Even though I have nearly two decades of experience putting up my own food, I rarely pass up books like this, even geared towards beginners. The reason why is that no matter how much I learn, I almost always learn something new. Also, because I have actual experience, I am also more likely to catch when authors make mistakes in their books. I hate for a beginner to be mislead. The only "mistake" I can report in this book is that the author is a tad too anal for me in her insistence that you must use Diamond Crystal Kosher salt. I understand her reasoning, but really, any non iodized salt will do. Really. It's fine. If it wasn't I would have died a long time ago.

The author is very clear about the importance of following the directions & not tweaking a recipe to how you think it should be. It is very important for food safety that you follow a recipe exactly. The only possible issue is if a recipe is incorrect, so let's hope that is not the case with this book as it is with the USDA's canning book! Yea, don't get that book! By the way, the author is a Master Food Preserver so odds are this book will steer all of us true.

I feel it is very important to point out that there are not many recipes in this book. There are also very few pictures. If you prefer a lot of photos in your books, you may not be happy with this. This book is more instructional on each preservation method with a handful of recipes tossed in. In each section the author provides guidelines for foods. If you plan to dehydrate say peas, find peas in the chart & see what is recommend to properly dry them. I plan to keep the book for now as there are a few other recipes I plan to try, but for the most part, there really isn't anything new here for me. However, the charts are rather handy for quick reference.

If you for example, are really itching to ferment more than any other method, then please, get a book on fermentation. Wild Fermentation by Sandor Katz is a great start. The same applies to dehydration. Whatever it is that floats your boat, get a book specifically about that method. That doesn't necessarily mean you shouldn't get this book. If you are curious about preservation in general & want to get your toes wet, this book is a great start. It thoroughly covers all the safety issues & equipment you'll need for each method. The only thing I found lacking was in the smoking section which only listed equipment & made no mention of a smoke house. If smoking is your thing, getting a book on that topic is what you want. See where I'm going with this?

This book has a sparkling wine jelly, a cranberry & wine jam recipe, the egg yolks I already mentioned, & a few other things (I can't think of them all off the top of my head) I'd like to see how they turn out. Note in the strawberry jam recipe & variations in this book, there is no mention of adding pure organic vanilla bean (not the pod, but what you scrape out from the pod). Oh my goodness, adding a little 100% vanilla bean to strawberry jam is out of this world.

In summary, if you are interested in preserving food but don't know where to start, or what may work for you, this book is a great primer. If you already know what method/s you want to use to preserve your food, pick up books on that specific method & maybe check this book out at the library to see if it's worth getting.

I wish you a bountiful pantry!