Preserving: Conserving, Salting, Smoking, Pickling

by Ginette Mathiot, Clotilde Dusoulier (Editor)

Classic French preserving techniques updated for a modern audience.

Preserve fruit, vegetables, meat and fish with a beautifully illustrated guide from France's favorite food author. Enjoy local, fresh, organic food throughout the year. With more than 350 classic French recipes, both home cooks and chefs will learn traditional techniques for sweet and savory preserving, as well as smoking, pickling, and making charcuterie.

France's favorite food author Ginette Mathiot classic has been revised and updated for todays preserver by Clotilde Dusoulier, famed for her Chocolate and Zucchini website and books, Clotilde's Edible Adventures in Paris, Chocolate and Zucchini, Edible French, and The French Market Cookbook.

Genres: Cookbooks, Food, Cooking, Food Preservation

336 pages, Hardcover

First published September 21, 2015

About the author

Ginette Mathiot (1907–1998), Officier de la Legion d'Honneur, taught three generations how to cook in France and is the ultimate authority on French home cooking. She wrote more than 30 best-selling cookbooks, covering all subjects in French cuisine. Je sais cuisiner was her definitive, most comprehensive work, which brings together recipes for every classic French dish.

Reviews

[Cissa · Rating 4 out of 5]

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".

[Annette McIntyre · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a book I would like to add to my reference collection at home. Lots of well known and some lesser known techniques are on show in this book.

[Jody · Rating 3 out of 5]

Was actually a little disappointed with the size of this book and was expecting more salting, smoking, picking recipes there are a lot of canning recipes ild say more than half the book and I love ginette Mathiot books. Her other book ‘I know how to cook’is one of my all time favourites and I was kind of expecting this book to be in the same scope. There are much better books on the same subjects glad I own it but not sure if I’ll use many recipes out of it.

[Ben · Rating 5 out of 5]

Quite apart from its historical value, the recipes in the Charcuterie section alone are worth referencing.