If you’d like to salt some cod, ferment some sauerkraut, freeze some strawberries, dry some cranberries, pressure-can some soup and make your own bacon, you wouldn’t think one book could help you do all of them. But “Preserving Everything,” by Leda Meredith (Countryman Press) tackles all of those topics.
And more. While written by a New Yorker (Meredith hails from Brooklyn) the book has enough recipes for Colorado produce to be worthy of space on your shelf. There’s no long, self-adoring “me and my groovy life” intro. Instead, Meredith economically explains preserving techniques and how they work, so that you can build on her recipes to safely figure out your own. The book’s design has hefty margins to scribble them in.
Meredith has three methods for making kale chips, including one that qualifies as a “raw” food. She demystifies pressure-canning, including high-altitude adjustments. There’s a recipe for spiced (or spiked) pear butter made in a slow-cooker. There’s one for cherry syrup. “Apple Scrap Jelly” gleans the peels and cores of apples you’re using for pie or cider.
In two short paragraphs on page 90, Meredith elucidates the sugar-vs.-pectin dilemma. For jelly makers, that’s a quantum leap.
