Product Description

Why preserve? Because preserving makes food taste great, is cheaper than shop-bought versions and ultimately because it is addictive - once you begin, you will soon discover a reluctance to return to inferior, mass-produced food. Preserved is a panoramic introduction to a world that will consume and seduce you. Full of practical information, it covers all the main techniques of food preservation with accessible instructions and a light-hearted manner. Johnny and Nick show you how to dry meat and herbs, salt fish and cure ham. They teach you how to build a smokehouse and then smoke your own salmon, how to make sausages, pickle eggs and infuse oils, preserve with sugar, bottle fruit in alcohol and can your own produce. Preserved also reflects the international nature of these techniques, exploring the biltong of South Africa, Asian kim chee and the herbes de Provence as well as British classics such as kippers, marmalade and sloe gin. Accompanying the techniques are over 100 recipes that will help you to bring out the best of your preserved food - what do to with your damson jam, home-made chorizo or smoked oysters? There are also entertaining tales about the history of preserving, including the story of the American World War II pilots who made ice cream by tying cartons of the mixture to the tails of their planes. Preserving is like alchemy. It is about transforming food. Creating individual food that you will enjoy not only because it tastes so good, but because you have crafted it, tailored it to your own palate and then waited for it. But above all, preserving is fun.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #152744 in Books
• Published on: 2005-08-04
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 224 pages

Glasgow Evening Times, August 05
Preserved is packed with a larderful of treats

Mail on Sunday, September 04
Preserved contains everything you could wish to know on drying, salting, smoking and pickling. Elegantly written... gives excellent recipes

Sunday Times Culture, 28 Nov 2004
Ideal recipes for the good cook who wants more.

Customer Reviews

Not what it says
The title of this book is misleading.
If you want a book that tells you how to preserve various products, and gives you a number of recipes for preserves etc, then i think you'd be better served elsewhere. This book does give some basic preserving tips, but the majority of recipes are about what you can use the preserve for once its already been made.
Personally i think its more like a "traditional" cookbook rather than the preserving "bible" i was hoping for.

Lovely book, slightly misleading listing though!
Having recently caught the jam-making bug, I bought this for some fresh ideas, for which it is great, there are lots of recipes I'm looking forward to trying (with very enticing photography - non a vital element of a cookbook, but always a nice one.) The overviews of the various preserving techniques are interesting & well-written, too. But putting Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall first in the list of authors is somewhat misleading as his contribution is a single page!

Average
This is a nice book - well presented, interesting and it explains how the preserving processes work... but it doesn't REALLY tell you a lot about preserving. Perhaps because it covers so many topics it is forced to be brief. Don't get me wrong - I've tried a couple of recipes (all successfully), but I just think it's too generic. Personally I prefer a cookbook (or preserving book) which is a bit more inspiring. Perhaps if you have little culinary experience and know nothing about preserving then this is a perfect introductions, but if you want to learn more about the specifics then you need to look elsewhere. To my mind, you can't go wrong with Marguerite Patten. No frills, no pretty pictures, just cold, hard good instruction and recipes. Her "Basic Basics - Jams, Preserves & Chutneys" book is excellent, if old fashioned (but if it aint broke...) and covers everything in the title and more. This, unfortunately, is somewhat more of a coffee table preserving book.