Preserving: Conserving, Salting, Smoking, Pickling

Purchased as a gift for someone who does this sort of thing. Recipient was totally thrilled with this book!

I have the "I Know How to Cook" book by Ginette Mathiot, and I love it. That book has a section on preserving, but not as extensive as this book. I didn't look at its dimensions when I was ordering this book, so I was surprised when I received it and it was small compared to most of my cook books. That's not a bad thing, but I'm mentioning it only for others who may not have looked at the measurements. This book is translated from French, and somewhat updated to make it more relevant to the modern preserver. I would like to get my hands on an English edition that hasn't been revised, but I don't know if such a thing even exists. I haven't used any of the recipes yet. I already preserve all kinds of foods, so I bought this book more for inspiration and sentimental value. This book dates back to WWII, and most of it I already knew about from the stories my gran used to tell me and from watching her in the kitchen when I was a little kid. It's when my love of food started. The idea behind this book was to teach people how not to waste food and how to work with limited resources during a tough time. I'm very picky about my cook books, and I've never been disappointed by Phaidon's books (I have quite a few). I wish more of Ginette's cook books were translated to English. "The Art of French Baking" is another of Ginette's books that has been translated, and similarly to this preserving book, it's an expansion of the baking section in the "I know How To Cook". If you'd prefer a more general cook book, the "I Know How To Cook" is excellent, and includes a bunch of the recipes from this preserving book and from the baking book. This "Preserving..." covers more than the usual salting, freezing, jams, and fermenting. It covers preserving large quantities of, for example, apples outdoors. It's a similar approach to keeping potatoes outside over winter. I love the cover design.

Excellent book. Looking forward to many happy hours in the kitchen.

Expected better from phaidon.

This is an interesting book, but I'm not sure I'd recommend it.The good: it's an update of a historical French volume on preserving, and it's pretty comprehensive. It's supposed to have been updated to cover current knowledge of canning times,etc., but some of the hot-bath canning times, in particular, look far shorter than ones I usually see for similar items. it is also very comprehensive, with specific details and recipes to cover pretty much everything one might encounter.The problems: generally, what's available in the USA is rather different from what the French countryside had to offer 60+ years ago, and it would be hard to source many of the main ingredients. Also, see above about the updated times; I am not sure I'd trust the canning times without a separate confirmation for a similar recipe from a known, reliable source.Another negative- and this could be serious!: even a fairly casual reading found many, many errors in the text, even including mis-titling at least one recipe. This makes me even more concerned about trusting the canning times, etc.It's interesting, but more as a historical inspiration than a go-to for actual preserving. If you want something that's more relevant for us in the USA today, I'd really recommend Alice Water's "My Pantry".