Putting Food By

If you like to preserve your own harvest (or the harvest of your local farmer's market) then this one is a godsend. It actually explains in great detail what needs pressure canning and what doesn't, plus it does give recipes to work with. If you are like me and prefer to make something homemade for dinner and just preserve the leftovers, this works fantastically. You can make a big batch of, for instance, PFB's beef stew and can most of it. Then you take the portion for your dinner and doctor it up to your favored specifications. Much better than the sorry recipes found in pectin packets, I assure you.

Just picked this up at a library book sale! Putting Food By is a little dated, but much of the material on canning and food preservation is still valid, because the authors came a the topic from the point of view of food safety. They do not recommend some of the older techniques that produce a questionable product, and they encourage the reader to keep food safety in mind when they are preserving. The book covers canning, freezing, drying, root-cellaring (one of the more interesting sections, to me, as I have a damp musty old basement and it sounds like that's exactly what you need!), curing, and some other "homesteading" topics like rendering lard and making soap. There are also some interesting old recipes at the end of the book (I am show more interested in the "baked stuffed heart" and "Old Settler Indian Pudding") There are also two mincemeat recipes in the canning section I am dying to try! show less

A bit heavy on the 'do it this way or you're all gonna DIE' approach, but a useful introduction to bottling, drying and freezing excess produce.

Great reference for preserving anything, including pickling, canning, drying, and my favorite, jams and jellies! In my hippie farm childhood, this book was second most used cookbook (the top book being Joy of cooking). I am thrilled to see it is still in print.

An excellent quick reference book for food preserving with the hows and whys for doing each method, per each specific food. The book also gives good information to assess your equipment needs and concerns (freezers, canning equipment, etc.). It stays on the kitchen bookshelf with all my other favorites.

I have two copies of this book - one is the original (this one) that I purchased at the Salvation Army for 97 cents. It is older and some parts are out of date (read - would not be considered safe today) but that is exactly why I keep it. The newer version does not contain the chapters on "the preserving kettle" or "the round up".

This is a great reference for both the beginner and advanced canner.