Patricia Telesco - The Everything Canning and Preserving Book: All you need to know to enjoy natural, healthy foods year round

THE
EVERYTHING
CANNING &
PRESERVING
BOOK Dear Reader, My love affair with preserving began when I tried to come up with new gift ideas for the holidays. Making kitchen baskets with dried herbs, soup bases, and seasoned r ubs had been a huge hit, but I wanted to make a greater, more customized variety. I found inspiration in my memories my mother making freezer jelly and my grandmother canning and dr ying all manner of things. Ah-ha! I was on to something. Being a frugal person, the best way to get myself really inspired was to invest in basic equipment. The very first thing I created after shopping was pink grapefruit jelly, and from that point forward our whole family was hooked.

The fresh flavors, the ability to decrease waste, the financial savings, and the ease of the process combined to form something perfectly suited to our homeand yours. I have been a hearthside gourmet for many years, and this book is a dream come true for me. Thank you for sharing in it and sitting at my virtual table for a while. To adapt an old Irish saying a bit, may you always have tea beside the fire, laughter to cheer you, those you love near you,and a full pantry ready to be shared. Trish Telesco Welcome to the EVERYTHING Series! These handy, accessible books give you all you need to tackle a difficult project, gain a new hobby, comprehend a fascinating topic, prepare for an exam, or even brush up on something you learned back in school but have since forgotten. You can choose to read an Everything book from cover to cover or just pick out the information you want from our four useful boxes: e-questions, e-facts, e-alerts, and e-ssentials.

We give you everything you need to know on the subject, but throw in a lot of fun stuff along the way, too. We now have more than 400 Everything books in print, spanning such wide-ranging categories as weddings, pregnancy, cooking, music instruction, foreign language, crafts, pets, New Age, and so much more. When youre done reading them all, you can finally say you know Everything! PUBLISHER Karen Cooper DIRECTOR OF ACQUISITIONS AND INNOVATION Paula Munier MANAGING EDITOR EVERYTHING SERIES Lisa Laing COPY CHIEF Casey Ebert ACQUISITIONS EDITOR Katie McDonough ASSOCIATE DEVELOPMENT EDITOR Elizabeth Kassab EDITORIAL ASSISTANT Hillary Thompson Visit the entire Everything series at www.everything.com All you need to know to enjoy
natural, healthy foods year round
Patricia Telesco
with Jeanne P. Maack, Founder of Creative Canning Cuisine

This book is dedicated to Tradition. Whether we carry on our
ancestors traditions or create new ones of our own, may we all
celebrate, commemorate, and facilitate wonderful culinary moments
worth remembering for many years to come. Copyright 2009 by F+W Media, Inc. All rights reserved.
This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced
in any form without permission from the publisher; exceptions
are made for brief excerpts used in published reviews.

An Everything Series Book.
Everything and everything.com are registered trademarks of F+W Media, Inc. Published by Adams Media, a division of F+W Media, Inc.
57 Littlefield Street, Avon, MA 02322 U.S.A.
www.adamsmedia.com ISBN 10: 1-59869-987-3
ISBN 13: 978-1-59869-987-6
eISBN: 978-1-60550-718-7 Printed in the United States of America. J I H G F E D C B A Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
is available from the publisher.
This publication is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information with regard to the subject matter covered. It is sold with the understanding that the publisher is not engaged in rendering legal, accounting, or other professional advice. If legal advice or other expert assistance is required, the services of a competent professional person should be sought. From a Declaration of Principles jointly adopted by a Committee of the
American Bar Association and a Committee of Publishers and Associations Many of the designations used by manufacturers and sellers to distinguish their products are claimed as trademarks.

Where those designations appear in this book and Adams Media was aware of a trademark claim, the designations have been printed with initial capital letters. This book is available at quantity discounts for bulk purchases.
For information, please call 1-800-289-0963.ContentsAcknowledgments There are several people to thank for their help with this book. First, my gratitude goes to everyone at Adams Media (and especially Katie) for being so enthusiastic and helpful. Without your ongoing insights there would be no book. Second, to Jeanne, who trusted a complete stranger with her knowledge and wonderful canning skills. You have been a pleasure to work with from day one.

Next, Dianne and Bobbi, both of whom have come to my rescue when things looked gloomiest and kept me going. Everyone should have friends as thoughtful as you both. I am doubly blessed. Fourth, Im very grateful for Food Network personalities like Mario Batali, Alton Brown, Duff Goldman, and Anthony Bourdain, who reinforce several important ideas to viewers. First, the wonder of gourmet cooking need not be lost in a drive-through society. Second, gourmet doesnt have to mean difficult (it really is okay to play with your food).

Lastly, truly anyone can learn to make great meals, especially when they cook from the heart. Finally, my sincere thanks goes to my family, who have sat through all my experiments as taste testers without grumbling. Not everything came out perfect, but we have had great fun getting there, and truly, its all about the journey. Introduction HAVE YOU EVER pried open the lid of a store-bought can of soup, fruit, or vegetables and wished it contained the fresh flavors you wanted? More importantly, wouldnt it be nice to know whats really in your food without needing a dictionary? The EverythingCanning & PreservingBook gives you both of these things, without eating up all your free time. By applying the instructions in this book, anyone can create interesting, unique, preserved edibles at home that are spiced just right and created with loving care. As you might suspect, this is not your run-of-the-mill recipe collection.

From gourmet jam flavors and luscious mustards to mouthwatering marinades and pleasing pickles, youre going to find refreshingly creative recipes to add to your repertoire. Perhaps theyll even become new traditions. After entering the world of preserving, families will discover important budgetary advantages and the wonders of a full pantry that appeals to everyones taste buds. Children will love helping out, and single readers will find that these methods can help with the not-wanting-to-cook-for-one-person blues. Now singles can preserve perfectly sized portions of a favorite creation and take out a single serving whenever the craving strikes. Its true that the arts of canning and preserving fell out of fashion for a while.

After all, the supermarket had nearly anything you wanted at a reasonable cost. Today, things are different. What happened to inspire a renaissance? Many things. Theres the move toward getting away from chemically treated food, and organic gardens have sprouted up in many backyards. This book is meant for anyone who wants to know what they put in their mouth is safe. Its also written for the large number of television viewers who have caught the cooking bug from various shows.