We talk a lot about preserving food here at Chelsea Green, but it’s not to be didactic! It’s because we believe in the possibilities of having power over one’s food supply, and being able to seek a more sustainable life, with a stocked larder. We believe in food that is affordable, in spaces for gardens even in the most urban of places, and the RIGHT to grow and process one’s own food.

Just last weekend we participated in the Weston A. Price Foundation conference, a convergence of raw-food advocates and fermentation fans. Three of our authors gave talks on the importance of taking control of your food, in small but significant ways, from experimenting with simple vegetable ferments to making artisan cheese, to fighting corporate control of agriculture on a national level.

But maybe we should take a moment and rewind, and revisit the whole idea of preserving food from a fundamentals standpoint. Let’s think about the WHY. And the HOW.

From our piece on Planetgreen.com:

There are plans in the works for the world’s largest telescope–one that can see back in time to the first stars and their formation. I know, right? Blows your mind. But while you wait for this magnificent (and seemingly impossible) invention, you can turn back the clocks of time in your own home. Starting in the kitchen. And by the way, you don’t even need to have a garden! Try something new: turn your produce into preserves, without nutrient loss. You’ll be eating fresh veggies even in the coldest of months, and as for your hors d’oerves platter—it’ll be the talk of the town.

The Gardeners and Farmers of Terre Vivante, an ecological research and education center located in southeastern France, are masters in the art of preserving food. But their technique is not as simple as stuffing food in your freezer, or storing them away in mason jars. They implement more traditional and old-fashioned methods using salt, oil, sugar, alcohol, vinegar, drying, cold storage, and lactic fermentation. In their book, Preserving Food Without Freezing or Canning: Traditional Techniques Using Salt, Oil, Sugar, Alcohol, Vinegar, Drying, Cold Storage, and Lactic Fermentation, they give tips and recipes on how to preserve food, the traditional ways.

The History of Canning and Freezing

According to the folks at Terre Vivante:

“These days, frozen foods tend to replace canned and bottled goods, since foods lose fewer nutrients through cold than through heat. But freezing is not very satisfactory either: it is expensive, consumes a lot of energy, and destroys many of the vitamins. In the home kitchen, we observe the same development as we have seen in industry: Canning, which was very popular in the 1960s (country folks each with their own sterilizers, putting up their own green beans, shell peas, and tomatoes), has given way to freezing. Emerging relatively recently (sterilization in the nineteenth century, freezing in the twentieth century), these two processes have relegated traditional food-preservation methods to obscurity, if not complete oblivion, as their scope of application has dwindled away. By far, the best example of displacement is lactic fermentation. Formerly used to preserve all sorts of vegetables, it has survived solely for making sauerkraut, and at that, more for gastronomic reasons than as a preservation process in its own right.

Fortunately, the traditional methods of preservation still live on in the French countryside, although they are rapidly disappearing. There is a wealth of knowledge to be gathered here before it falls into anonymity.”

Choosing a Method of Preservation

So what to choose in lieu of freezing and canning? According to these gardeners and farmers:

“Three methods overwhelmingly dominate the history of food preservation before the industrial age: cellar storage under cool, dark conditions, for certain fruits and winter vegetables (such as root vegetables, tubers, apples, and pears); drying, for fruit; and lactic fermentation for most other vegetables. Natural-state preservation in a cellar is the most basic way to preserve foods that take well to this method. Although it is possible to dry apples and to lacto-ferment carrots, winter provisions have traditionally relied on apples stored in a cellar in their natural state, and carrots preserved likewise in a root cellar, or in the ground.”

[…]

Read the entire article here.

Do you remember the story of the little red hen?She found a grain of wheat, and wanted to turn it into bread. She tried to get her friends in on the action, but they were lazy or uninterested — or maybe they were gluten-intolerant and she just didn’t realize that.

Anyway, she had to do all the work herself, from planting the wheat to harvesting it, to milling the flour and finally, baking the bread. She wins in the end though, because when all her hungry friends come by all excited for some fresh bread she’s like, no way guys, I’m going to eat it all by myself too!

We hope your friends won’t be so unhelpful, because there’s nothing better than breaking bread with loved ones — even better if you’ve made it from scratch. And EVEN better if you did in fact grow those grains yourself.

To celebrate Homemade Bread Day, we’ve put a selection of books on sale to take you from seed to scrumptious loaf. The books below will be on sale for one week, at a discount of 25%.

Reg. Price: $29.95 Sale Price: $0000

Small-Scale Grain Raising: An Organic Guide to Growing, Processing, and Using Nutritious Whole Grains for Home Gardeners and Local Farmers, Second Edition

First published in 1977, this book—from one of America’s most famous and prolific agricultural writers—became an almost instant classic among homestead gardeners and small farmers.

Now fully updated and available once more, Small-Scale Grain Raising offers a entirely new generation of readers the best introduction to a wide range of both common and lesser-known specialty grains and related field crops, from corn, wheat, and rye to buckwheat, millet, rice, spelt, flax, and even beans and sunflowers.

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Reg. Price: $39.95 Sale Price: $25.97

The Art of Fermentation: An In-Depth Exploration of Essential Concepts and Processes from Around the World

The Art of Fermentation is the most comprehensive guide to do-it-yourself home fermentation ever published. Sandor Katz presents the concepts and processes behind fermentation in ways that are simple enough to guide a reader through their first experience making sauerkraut or yogurt, and in-depth enough to provide greater understanding and insight for experienced practitioners.

Once you’ve harvested your grain of choice, you can add flavor and nutrition to your bread by fermenting the flour before you bake it. Get the tips on starting and maintaining a healthy sourdough here.

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Reg. Price: $39.95 Sale Price: $25.97

Home Baked: Nordic Recipes and Techniques for Organic Bread and Pastry

Home Baked is more than a bread cook book. The authors are reminiscent of the little red hen from the fable: they grow, harvest, and grind the grain they use to bake the beautiful, organic, and unique breads featured in the book.

Perfectly timed for the growing interest in Scandinavian, and particularly Danish, cuisine, Home Baked is a must-have book for any bread lover’s library.

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Reg. Price: $18.00 Sale Price: $13.50

Build Your Own Barrel Oven: A Guide for Making a Versatile, Efficient, and Easy to Use Wood-Fired Oven

You’ve got your homegrown, naturally-leavened dough rising away in the kitchen, but your homemade bread mission can still go one level of DIY farther: build your own efficient, wood-burning oven to bake it in! Not even our hero the little red hen was that badass.

In this new book, Max and Eva Edleson offer a comprehensive guide for planning and building a practical, efficient and affordable wood-fired oven. The barrel oven offers surprising convenience because it is hot and ready to bake in within 15-20 minutes and is easy to maintain at a constant temperature.

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Reg. Price: $35.00 Sale Price: $22.75

The Bread Builders: Hearth Loaves and Masonry Ovens

Daniel Wing, a lover of all things artisanal, had long enjoyed baking his own sourdough bread. His quest for the perfect loaf began with serious study of the history and chemistry of bread baking, and eventually led to an apprenticeship with Alan Scott, the most influential builder of masonry ovens in America.

Alan and Daniel have teamed up to write this thoughtful, entertaining, and authoritative book that shows you how to bake superb healthful bread and build your own masonry oven.

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November 14th is National Pickle Day, and to help you celebrate we’ve put a selection of books on sale full of pickling and preserving recipes that range from simple, dill-scented cucumber pickles to funky, lacto-fermented salsa, and much more.

Pickling is an ancient method of preserving fresh food — especially vegetables. Salts draw out moisture and encourage bacteria that turn things tangy instead of terrible.

Your growing season is probably over by now (except for you lucky warm-climate readers whom we here in Vermont have already started to envy, and will not stop until mud season dries up next May!) but if you put up some pickles this summer they’re probably perfect by now.

So pop open a mason jar of dilly beans or a can of corn relish and peruse our pick of pickling books! All of the books below will be on sale until November 20.

Reg. Price: $39.95 Sale Price: $25.97

The Art of Fermentation: An In-Depth Exploration of Essential Concepts and Processes from Around the World

Sandor Ellix Katz has been called many things, fermentation guru, “Sandorkraut”, cultural revivalist — and Prince of Pickles.

The Art of Fermentation, Sandor Katz’s encyclopedic and inspiring guide to all things tangy and alive, will teach you everything you need to know about pickles and other ferments.

If you live in Portland, Oregon, head down to Powell’s tomorrow to meet the prince in person! More information on this National Pickle Day event, here.

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Reg. Price: $25.00 Sale Price: $18.75

Preserving Food Without Freezing or Canning: Traditional Techniques Using Salt, Oil, Sugar, Alcohol, Vinegar, Drying, Cold Storage, and Lactic Fermentation

Preserving Food Without Freezing or Canning offers more than 250 easy and enjoyable recipes featuring locally grown and minimally refined ingredients. It is an essential guide for those who seek healthy food for a healthy world.

Typical books about preserving garden produce nearly always assume that modern kitchen gardeners will boil or freeze their vegetables and fruits. Yet here is a book that goes back to the future—celebrating traditional but little-known French techniques for storing and preserving edibles in ways that maximize flavor and nutrition.

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Reg. Price: $34.95 Sale Price: $22.72

Wild Flavors: One Chef’s Transformative Year Cooking from Eva’s Farm

Is the produce aisle seeming a little too tame lately? Mass-produced tomatoes with no flavor, kale greens tough from spending days in a truck, the same old broccoli again and again.

Wild Flavors delivers exactly what its title promises. Chef Didi Emmons spent a year visiting Eva Sommaripa’s farm, which provides fresh greens, herbs — and vegetables commonly known as weeds — to Boston restaurants. Calaminth, purslane, arugula flowers? Pure, yummy magic.

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Reg. Price: $24.95 Sale Price: $18.71

Making the Most of Your Glorious Glut: Cooking, Storing, Freezing, Drying & Preserving Your Garden Produce

Making the most of your Glorious Glut is the answer to the perennial problem of an over-abundance of wonderful fruit and vegetables.

From cucumbers to spinach, tomatoes to runner beans or blackcurrants to plums, most gardeners will recognize the sinking feeling that creeps over you when you realize you have had such a good harvest that you cannot actually face picking, cooking or eating any more. Even if you haven’t grown them yourself, it is easy to end up with too many fruits or vegetables after just one visit to the local pick-your-own center or a trip to a country hedgerow.

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(Photo Credit: Steve Adams, via Julia Usher)

Paula Crossfield, editor of Civil Eats, crowned Sandor Katz “Prince of Pickles” when she interviewed him earlier this year. He’s also been dubbed the “fermentation guru,” but that’s far less alliterative than what Katz often calls himself in interviews: A “fermentation fetishist.”

Katz’s passion for all things fermented makes his latest book, The Art of Fermentation, as zesty and exciting as a freshly opened crock of kim chi, not to mention a New York Times bestseller.

Do you have questions about sauerkraut, which Katz has dubbed his “gateway drug,” or are you curious to learn from Katz about new ferments you’ve never tried — like kefir, kvass and kombucha. Katz’s new book is the most comprehensive guide available, and will introduce you to fermented foods from cultures around the world. If your garden produced a patch of plump peas this summer, you can pickle that! Or you can pickle a peck of perfect peppers, Sandor Katz will show you how.

If you’re in the Portland area (the incredibly pickle-friendly Portland area), you will have the perfect opportunity to praise the Prince of Pickles in person. To celebrate National Pickle Day on November 14th, Powell’s City of Books is hosting Katz for a talk about The Art of Fermentation, and a book signing.

Though, unlike the Portlandia episode Katz will keep his pickling panache strictly to truly edible items — no unused jewel cases, broken heels, or band aids. However, if we do say so ourselves - Katz’s chops are far superior to that of Fred Armisen’s. Maybe worthy enough for a cameo on Portlandia?

Journalist Liz Crain is hosting Katz during his stay in Portland, and she’s also giving away a copy of the book (which you can get signed by Katz himself). Enter to win by leaving a comment on her post about your favorite ferment.

Just in time for the holidays, we have combined Katz’s two classic books on fermentation (The Art of Fermentation and Wild Fermentation) with a DVD of one of his popular workshops. Get all three in one reduced-price set here.

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The holiday season is upon us, and soon your family and friends will gather for feasts to ward off the coming chill of winter.

Food brings us together, especially during the holidays. Too many of us have forgotten how to make things from scratch, or never experience the joy that comes with making a special meal with ecologically-grown or raised, local ingredients. To re-ignite your passion for food, this email contains recipes for corn bread, “roots” beer, blue cheese, as well as inspired locavore twists on classic recipes for turkey, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, and more.

Take a look at the menu we’ve put together with full recipes below:

Happy reading from the folks at Chelsea Green Publishing!

P.S. Don’t forget to check out our full list of books on sale here: http://www.chelseagreen.com/bookstore/sale

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~ Starters ~

Simmered Mushroom Trio with Garlic Crostini

From Cooking Close to Home

From Cooking Close to Home: A Year of Seasonal Recipes

Start your Thanksgiving meal with a crispy, savory, vegetarian appetizer.

Wild mushrooms are simmered with garlic and onions in this simple, healthy recipe from Cooking Close to Home. 

Authors Diane Imrie and Richard Jarmusz are the chef/nutritionist team who have won awards for revolutionizing the food served at Vermont’s largest hospital. Lucky patients at Fletcher Allen are now served healthy, organic, local, and delicious meals.

The cookbook takes you through the seasons, and is the perfect accompaniment to a CSA membership, or a great gift for the locavore on your list.

Get the recipe here…

Rindless Blue Cheese

From Mastering Artisan Cheesemaking

From Mastering Artisan Cheesemaking: The Ultimate Guide for Home-Scale and Market Producers

A cheese plate is an easy, crowd-pleasing appetizer. But what if you made one of the cheeses yourself?

If you started this blue cheese today, it might not quite be ready by Thanksgiving, but it’s a great example of the kind of valuable, in-depth, beyond-beginner-level information you can find in Gianaclis Caldwell’s new book. With Caldwell’s welcoming tone, excellent information, and the book’s beautiful design, Mastering Artisan Cheesemaking will help you make the cheeses you’ve always wanted to.

“Mastering Artisan Cheesemaking is the one book that tells you everything you need to know to become an award-winning cheese maker. Caldwell’s practical and straightforward explanations make this entire book (along with its amusing anecdotes) a great pleasure to read. Among the recent bounty of books on cheese, this one is a must-have.” — Max McCalman, author of Mastering Cheese

Want to make your own blue cheese? Get the recipe here…

Roots Beer

From The Art of Fermentation

From The Art of Fermentation: An In-Depth Exploration of Essential Concepts and Processes from Around the World

Impress your family at the table this Thanksgiving when you share a bottle of homemade root beer, or “roots” beer, as Sandor Katz would put it.

“A traditional root beer is a sweetened and fermented decoction of flavorful plant roots. Contrary to the commonly known singular “root” beer, various roots have been and can be used. As a matter of fact, mixing together more than one type of root yields a better flavor than a single root alone.”

This easy recipe comes from Katz’s new book, The Art of Fermentation, a New York Times bestseller and the most comprehensive guide to fermentation ever published.

Make your own sweet, bubbly root beer. Get the recipe…

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~ Main Dish ~

Turkey and Gravy: Straightforward, Simple and Delicious

From Long Way on a Little

From Long Way on a Little: An Earth Lover’s Companion for Enjoying Meat, Pinching Pennies and Living Deliciously

From farmer and author Shannon Hayes, author of Radical Homemakers, comes Long Way on a Little, or as we like to call it, “the only meat cookbook you’ll ever need.”

Hayes raises beef on her farm in upstate New York, and has been spreading the gospel of grassfed meat for years. Grassfed meats require a little extra care in cooking, but reward you with a depth of flavor, and more nutrients than grain-fed meat. In Hayes’s new book, she covers special lost skills such as how to render fat into lard, how to make broth from bones, as well as recipes for cooking pasture-raised beef, pork, poultry, and more.

This simple recipe for Turkey and Gravy will help you make the centerpiece of your Thanksgiving meal delicious.

Get the recipe… 

Walnut Sausage Stuffing

From The Farmer and the Grill

From The Farmer and the Grill: A Guide to Grilling, Barbecuing and Spit-Roasting Grassfed Meat…and for saving the planet one bite at a time

In The Farmer and the Grill, Shannon Hayes shares even more tips on preparing grassfed meats.

Complement Shannon’s turkey recipe from above with her rich Walnut Sausage Stuffing.

“Cook the stuffing separately. I know a lot of folks like to put the stuffing inside their holiday birds, and if Thanksgiving will be positively ruined if you break tradition, then stuff away. However, for a couple reasons, I recommend cooking your stuffing separately. First, everyone’s stuffing recipe is different. Therefore, the density will not be consistent, which means that cooking times will vary dramatically. I am unable to recommend a cooking time, since I cannot control what stuffing each person uses. Also, due to food safety concerns, I happen to think it is safer to cook the stuffing outside the bird.”

Get the recipe for Walnut Sausage Stuffing… 

Mashed Potatoes for Twelve

From This Organic Life

From This Organic Life: Confessions of a Suburban Homesteader

Joan Dye Gussow is one of the leaders of the organic food movement. She has taught nutrition for decades, but is perhaps better known for her garden on the fickle Hudson River. Sometimes the Hudson floods her potato patch, but still Joan gardens. In this brief excerpt from her book This Organic Life, Gussow realizes that she long ago crossed a threshold, “we had reached a point where we simply never bought a vegetable.”

She includes her easy recipe for Mashed Potatoes for Twelve (with enough left over for Mashed Potato Cakes) and we thought it was the perfect addition to our Earth-conscious Thanksgiving menu. Bonus points if you grew them yourself!

Get the recipe…

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~ Side Dishes ~

Little Lemon Rolls

From Home Baked

From Home Baked: Nordic Recipes and Techniques for Organic Bread and Pastry

Serve these savory rolls, laced with lemon zest, alongside your turkey and gravy for a burst of flavor.

Home Baked is more than a bread cook book. The authors are reminiscent of the little red hen from the fable: they grow thegrain, harvest the grain, grind the grain and bake the bread, all on their beautiful island farm in Denmark.

The recipes are simple, but in the tradition of Nordic cuisine many incorporate fresh, wild ingredients such as nettles, elder flowers, and wild leeks.

Get the recipe… 

Cornbread

From The Resilient Gardener

From The Resilient Gardener: Food Production and Self-Reliance in Uncertain Times

Carol Deppe teaches gardeners how to do more than just grow lettuce and herbs. Her latest book, The Resilient Gardener, seeks to share her wisdom for growing all the food you need — even if you suffer from food allergies such as gluten intolerance.

With guides to growing, harvesting, preserving, and storing five key crops, The Resilient Gardener is an excellent sourcebook for those trying to feed themselves from their own land.

Corn is one of Deppe’s key crops, and she has carefully bred the perfect varieties for different uses like polenta and cornbread. This recipe, Carol’s Universal Skillet Bread, is versatile enough to be used for sandwiches as well as a tasty, gravy-absorbing side dish — and it uses no wheat or artificial binders.

Get the recipe…

Cranberry Sauce

From Full Moon Feast

From Full Moon Feast: Food and the Hunger for Connection

Balance the unctuousness of your grassfed turkey with the bright acidic tang of cranberries. Either as a sweetened sauce, or a savory relish, these little American natives are a classic garnish for Thanksgiving meats.

Native Americans prized cranberries for their ability to remain edible and unspoiled for months, which made them an excellent food for traveling and a good source of nutrients over long, hard winters when fresh fruit and vegetables were scarce.

Jessica Prentice’s recipe for cranberry sauce is simple and traditional. It uses maple syrup and honey instead of sugar, which are both sweeteners easy to make on the homestead scale.

Get the recipe…

Kale Salad with Apples, Feta, and Walnuts

From Wild Flavors

From Wild Flavors: One Chef’s Transformative Year Cooking from Eva’s Farm

Chef Didi Emmons is known for crafting delightful, fresh, and unique dishes, and her latest cookbook, Wild Flavors offers exactly what the title proclaims.

Wild Flavors chronicles a year Emmons spent learning about new herbs and vegetables from organic farmer Eva Sommaripa. Eva’s passion for the earth, and her delicious produce, inspired Didi to take her cooking to new places.

Serve up Didi’s Sauteed Kale Salad with Apple, Walnuts, and Feta alongside your other dishes for a healthy, bright green dish.

Get the recipe…

Roasted Root Vegetables

From Full Moon Feast

From Full Moon Feast: Food and the Hunger for Connection

In Full Moon Feast, accomplished chef and passionate food activist Jessica Prentice champions locally grown, humanely raised, nutrient-rich foods and traditional cooking methods. The book follows the thirteen lunar cycles of an agrarian year, from the midwinter Hunger Moon and the springtime sweetness of the Sap Moon to the bounty of the Moon When Salmon Return to Earth in autumn.

This recipe from is perfect for anyone tending a root cellar. Simply combine enough of your favorite roots to feed your guests. Potatoes, sweet potatoes, rutabagas, carrots, beets, parsnips and more all combine beautifully together for a simple and satisfying side dish.

Get the recipe…

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~ Dessert ~

Lost Nation Cider Pie

From The Apple Grower

From The Apple Grower: A Guide for the Organic Orchardist, Second Edition

Your classic apple pie gets an interesting spin from apple (and peach, and plum, and pear, and berry) expert Michael Phillips. Try his recipe for Lost Nation Cider Pie.

Phillips’s book The Apple Grower has long been the best resource for anyone interested in growing these ubiquitous fruits organically. Now aspiring orchardists can learn about other tree fruits, and berries, (and even more about apples) with Phillips’s new book The Holistic Orchard.

If there’s anything that will inspire you to start growing your own fruit trees, it’s a tangy, scrumptious pie. Enjoy!

Got pie? Get the recipe…

 

 

New and Noteworthy Book Sets on Sale:

Leading the vanguard for food freedom, especially for those who believe in the health benefits of raw, fermented foods, is the Weston A. Price Foundation. Named after a dentist who studied traditional foodways and discovered that processed foods and wheat and high-tech fats were not present in the healthiest, non-industrialized diets, the Weston A. Price Foundation has chapters around the country, and gathers them all together for a conference each year.

This year’s conference is in Santa Clara, California, and three Chelsea Green authors will be speaking.

Come hear the gospel of fermentation from Sandor Katz on Friday, November 9 from 10AM-Noon. Katz’s new book The Art of Fermentation is a New York Times Bestseller, and has been inspiring fermentos everywhere to try new recipes and discover frisky new beneficial microbes to befriend.

Learn about the blessings and challenges that come with the territory of running a small-scale dairy from Gianaclis Caldwell on Sunday, November 11, from 4:00-5:20PM. Caldwell is the owner and cheesemaker at Pholia Farm in Oregon, and her new book, Mastering Artisan Cheesemaking caused early reviewers who got it to respond primarily in exclamation points and smiley faces. Okay, not quite, but if you read the praise the book garnered from expert cheesemakers and ‘mongers you’ll see what we mean.

And finally, listen to a rallying keynote speech from anti-GMO crusader Jeffrey Smith on Sunday evening at 5:30 PM. Smith has been eloquently waging war against GMO foods for years, with his books and videos decrying the corruption and danger these high-tech, low-nutrition foods contain. This year, Smith has been campaigning in California to support Proposition 37 to label GMO foods in the state. By the time of the Weston Price conference we should know the fate of Prop 37, so it’s hard to say whether this keynote will be a victory yell or a call to regroup and start the fight anew.

Chelsea Green is a longtime supporter of food rights and ideas for healthy eating that follow traditional notions — not industrial era fads. We’ve collected our best food and health books in an easy-to-read catalog which you can download here.

Get all the conference information here, and stop by our booth if you’re around! Staffers Michael Weaver and Jennifer McCharen will be there to sell books and answer questions.

Anyone who cans their own tomatoes, apple sauce, pickles, or jams knows that the difference between these simple preserves and the chemical-laced stuff you can buy at the store is immense. The flavor of home-preserved vegetables and fruits so far surpasses that of mass-produced stuff there’s almost no comparison.

But even preserving food at home by canning in a hot water bath can denature and destroy certain nutrients. To get the absolute most out of your home harvest or CSA haul you should investigate traditional methods of food preservation such as fermentation, drying, salt-curing, storage in oil or sugar, and more.

These methods are simple, require no fossil fuels, and are just as safe as hot-water-bath canning.

The following excerpt from Preserving Food Without Freezing or Canning: Traditional Techniques Using Salt, Oil, Sugar, Alcohol, Vinegar, Drying, Cold Storage, and Lactic Fermentation by the Gardeners & Farmers of Terre Vivant, will introduce you to some of these methods.

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PRESERVATION WITHOUT NUTRIENT LOSS

Canning or freezing. With few exceptions, these seem to be our only choices when we want to enjoy ready-to-eat fruits and vegetables out of season. As it is used today, the word “preserves” (like the French word conserves) evokes little more than food in cans or jars, preserved through sterilization. However, the original sense of the word was much broader, encompassing all known methods of food preservation.

These days, frozen foods tend to replace canned and bottled goods, since foods lose fewer nutrients through cold than through heat. But freezing is not very satisfactory either: it is expensive, consumes a lot of energy, and destroys many of the vitamins. In the home kitchen, we observe the same development as we have seen in industry: Canning, which was very popular in the 1960s (country folks each with their own sterilizers, putting up their own green beans, shell peas, and tomatoes), has given way to freezing. Emerging relatively recently (sterilization in the nineteenth century, freezing in the twentieth century), these two processes have relegated traditional food-preservation methods to obscurity, if not complete oblivion, as their scope of application has dwindled away. By far, the best example of displacement is lactic fermentation. Formerly used to preserve all sorts of vegetables, it has survived solely for making sauerkraut, and at that, more for gastronomic reasons than as a preservation process in its own right.

Fortunately, the traditional methods of preservation still live on in the French countryside, although they are rapidly disappearing. There is a wealth of knowledge to be gathered here before it falls into anonymity. This, then, is one of the goals of this book. Nevertheless, far from presenting a study of “preservation ethnology,” this collection is meant to be a practical guide. Every recipe we have included is still in use; some have even been enhanced by the advent of new technology, such as high-performance solar dryers, and water-sealed lactic-fermentation jars.

STOPPING FOOD CONTAMINATION

Left on its own, most fresh food quickly becomes unfit for consumption. Food is biochemically altered, due to the action of enzymes, and provides microorganisms—primarily bacteria—with a fertile environment in which to grow. To prevent this process, the most radical method is simply to kill the microorganisms by placing the food in an airtight container, and then heating it to temperatures greater than 100°C/212°F for a sufficient length of time. This technique, discovered by Nicolas Appert at the beginning of the nineteenth century, gave birth to the canning industry as we know it today.

Other methods of preservation seek to prevent microorganisms from spreading, without necessarily killing them. If the temperature is too low, acidity too high, water content insufficient, or salt concentration too high, microbes simply cannot multiply. As it is equally effective to destroy microorganisms or inhibit their growth, the method chosen should be the one that best protects the appearance, flavor, and nutritional value of the food, without adding undesirable substances. Of course, no method is ideal: During any preservation process, some alteration of the food is unavoidable. Moreover, no one method has proven superior to all others in all cases. And so, for most foods, we have a variety of techniques to choose from, each with its own advantages and disadvantages.

CHOOSING A METHOD OF PRESERVATION

Three methods overwhelmingly dominate the history of food preservation before the industrial age: cellar storage under cool, dark conditions, for certain fruits and winter vegetables (such as root vegetables, tubers, apples, and pears); drying, for fruit; and lactic fermentation for most other vegetables.

Natural-state preservation in a cellar is the most basic way to preserve foods that take well to this method. Although it is possible to dry apples and to lacto-ferment carrots, winter provisions have traditionally relied on apples stored in a cellar in their natural state, and carrots preserved likewise in a root cellar, or in the ground.

Nor is the choice between drying and lactic fermentation made arbitrarily. Experience has shown that dried fruits keep much better than most dried vegetables, retaining more flavor and vitamins due to their natural acidity. It is no coincidence that one of the few vegetables traditionally preserved by drying is the tomato, an acidic fruit-vegetable. As for lactic fermentation, people soon discovered that it was an unsuitable method for most fruit: Everyone knows that when fruit is fermented, we get alcoholic beverages.

Applications for the other methods of food preservation described in this book—sugar, salt, oil, vinegar, wine, and alcohol—are more limited, but certainly interesting nonetheless. For example, there are no substitutes for slow evaporation when preserving sugar-free jams, nor for oil and vinegar with herbs, salt with cod, and so on. In practice, the choice is often obvious, and simply depends upon the food to be preserved and its future culinary use.

ALTERING OR ENHANCING?

Inevitably, food is altered in the preservation process. However, unlike sterilization or freezing, many traditional methods do not necessarily mean a loss in flavor or nutritional value. Lactic fermentation, for example, enhances digestion and also increases the enzyme and sometimes the vitamin content, compared with the unfermented food. In other processes, the act of preserving often enhances the flavor of a food rather than its nutritional value. It might seem bizarre to preserve grapes in vinegar when this fruit keeps perfectly well by drying, but any gourmet will tell you that grapes in vinegar are divine with game or poultry.

Preserving basil in oil and vinegar serves two purposes: to preserve the flavor of this precious herb itself, and to impart its flavor to two ingredients used daily in cooking. And while drying preserves fruits, it also increases their sugar content, opening a new world of uses, such as sweetening desserts and certain beverages and providing energy-rich snacks for athletes. In bygone days, North Africans used raisins or dates, not cane sugar, to sweeten tea.

Over fifteen centuries ago, Hippocrates himself pointed out the positive effects of different preservation methods on the quality and properties of meat:

Meats preserved in wine become dry and are nourishing: they dry out because of the wine; they are nourishing because of the flesh. Preserved in vinegar, they ferment less, because of the vinegar, and are quite nourishing. Meats preserved in salt are less nourishing, as salt deprives them of moisture, but they become lean, dry out, and are sufficiently laxative.

The art of food preservation, which remains in part to be discovered, is this: For each food, use the method that not only best protects its nutritional value, but also enhances its flavor (and occasionally medicinal qualities), according to the eventual use we have in mind.

A NOTE ON FOOD SAFETY

Today, as home gardeners and cooks rediscover the joys of preserving, they often must confront a gap in cultural knowledge. Instead of turning to a parent or grandparent for advice, they turn to government agencies (chiefly the USDA) or to conventional books on canning, which advise sterilizing jars of food in either a boiling water bath or a pressure canner. However, as this book demonstrates, there are many traditional options for putting up fresh food that help food retain more of its flavor and nutritive value.

There is an important distinction to be made between sanitary and sterile conditions. Unless you live in an autoclave or hospital operating room, your kitchen (no matter how sanitary) will be far from sterile. Fortunately, absolute sterility isn’t necessary for most aspects of food preservation. For instance, though metal jar lids and tops will need to be boiled and sterilized, you can keep many disease-causing microbes in check simply by washing your hands frequently; by rinsing off raw foods; by thoroughly cleaning all utensils and cutting surfaces; and by following a few commonsense food safety guidelines (such as avoiding “cross-contamination” by using different utensils and surfaces to prepare raw meats and other foods).

In most (though not all) cases, food that has spoiled in storage should be readily apparent. Signs to look for include mold growing inside the lid of the container, on the food itself, or on the outside of the jar. Food that is badly discolored or darkened, or that is smelly or slimy, is likewise suspect and should be thrown away. When food is going bad, small bubbles may form inside a storage jar, and gas or liquid may escape in a rush when you unseal the container.

Remember that the point of preserving food is not to place it forever in suspended animation, but to extend the bounty of the fresh harvest season. Depending upon the type of food and the method of preservation used, this extension, or “shelf life,” might range from a few weeks to many months. Think of your pantry or cold cellar as a close cousin to the outdoor cold frame or unheated greenhouse—a simple, low-cost technology that can help you prolong the garden year and make the most of it. Many of the recipes in this book provide estimates on how long the prepared or stored foods will keep in good condition. Using this information, it’s possible to enjoy your preserved foods at their peak of flavor, just as you would fresh fruits and vegetables. Here’s to good food and good health!

Much of what we know about the moon consists of when it’s waning, when it’s waxing, and that a full moon makes people do strange things. And while it’s common knowledge (and not just on cheesy astrology websites) we have a connection to the moon, it’s hard to know exactly what it is, without sounding a bit like your crazy aunt who wears flowing glittery jumpsuits and calls herself by a Sanskrit nickname. But the moon is a dynamic and energetic force — especially when it comes to food.

Jessica Prentice, longtime chef and passionate food activist–not to mention the inventor of the word “locavore”–talks about the thirteen lunar cycles of an agrarian year, from the midwinter Hunger Moon and the springtime sweetness of the Sap Moon to the bounty of the Moon When Salmon Return to Earth in autumn. And now that it’s late summer, it means we’re living under the Wort Moon. The moon of making your own root beer.

The following is an excerpt from Full Moon Feast: Food and the Hunger for Connection by Jessica Prentice:

If they would eat nettles in March,
and drink mugwort in May,
so many fine maidens would not go to the clay.
—Funeral song of a Scottish mermaid

In late summer we enter the lunar phase known in sixteenth century England as the Wort Moon. Wort is a wonderfully old fashioned Old English word that has fallen into disuse, one that the dictionary calls “archaic.” Yet it is a word that beckons to me from history, a word that wants to be remembered.

The first definition for wort in the Oxford English Dictionary is “a plant, herb, or vegetable used for food or medicine; often = a potherb.” As early as 1605 the word wort was being replaced by the word herb, as is shown in a quote from that year: “Woortes, for which wee now vse the French name of herbes….” The word was still understood and used occasionally throughout the next centuries. In 1864: “We find the healing power of worts spoken of as a thing of course.” A love poem written in 1888 includes the delectable tidbit: “And worts and pansies there which grew / Have secrets others wish they knew.”

The original meaning of wort survives to this day in the names of many of our medicinal herbs. Saint-John’s-wort, still widely used today, is a beautiful yellow plant that was traditionally harvested on Saint John’s Day—which falls near the summer solstice. Many other medicinal herbs incorporate the word wort in their names, including lungwort, mugwort, motherwort, gipsywort, soapwort, masterwort, Indian birthwort, figwort, rupturewort, bairnwort, banewort, bloodwort, bridewort, cankerwort, clown’s woundwort, coughwort, feverwort, fleawort, glasswort, and dozens of others. In some cases the name gives a clue to how the herb is used: Lungwort makes a mucilaginous tea that soothes coughs; soapwort root is loaded with saponins, and is used in treating skin problems. But in others it can be misleading: Fleawort is so named not because it wards off fleas or cures fleabites, but because the seeds look like fleas!

The names of herbs possess much poetry. I also hear in their names a kind of ancestral memory— an ancient wisdom that wants to be remembered. The plants seem to be calling to me through their names. They remind me that once upon a time they were honored and valued; they were the primary source of healing. The herbs themselves and the gardens they grew in were our medicine chests, instead of today’s brand-named plastic bottles filled with pharmaceutical pills. Herbs were a part of daily life—a familiar, everyday, working knowledge— just as aspirin and vitamin C are to us today. The World Health Organization recently estimated that 80 percent of the world’s population still relies on botanical medicine for a majority of health problems. I find that statistic a potent reminder of how important plants are in treating illness.

I must admit that I have had my skeptical moments about the healing power of herbs. I have been dubious that the leaves of a certain plant could really cure a cough, or that the flowers of another could treat depression, or that the root of still one more could clear up the skin. Plants seem like such mild, simple, common things to have such powers. But everyone who was at my thirtieth birthday party and anyone else who has ever smoked marijuana knows that a plant can have a very powerful effect. So does anyone who’s ever gotten poison oak or poison ivy. And of course we all know that certain plants can be fatal if eaten. So whenever I find myself doubting the power of plants, I remember that if plants can make us hallucinate, or make us itch like crazy, or kill us, it is only logical that they can heal us as well.

* * * * * * * * * *

Root Beer
Makes 2 quarts

This is one of the few traditional lacto-fermented beverages modern people are familiar with—though the modern version is little like the traditional. For one thing, it is now illegal to sell root beer made from sassafras. Even though sassafras was a traditional herb long used by the peoples indigenous to southeastern North America, science experiments injecting large amounts of safrole—a compound in sassafras—into lab rats gave the animals cancer. But any compound, taken out of its plant matrix and injected in high quantities, can be toxic. Some people smell a rat: soft drink companies wanting to eliminate competition from home brewers? I make my root beer from sassafras—traditionally used as a blood cleanser—and don’t fret about the trace amounts of safrole it contains.

2 tablespoons dried sassafras (the bark of the root), available at herb stores or online
1 tablespoon dried licorice root, available at herb stores or online
2 quarts filtered water
1/3 cup birch syrup
1/3 cup Sucanat or Rapadura
1 cup ginger bug, 1/2 cup kefir grains, or 1 cup yogurt whey

Put the sassafras and licorice in a large pot and pour 1 quart of the filtered water over it.

Bring to a simmer and cover for 20 minutes. Turn off the heat and leave covered for about half an hour.

Pour the birch syrup and Sucanat or Rapadura into a 2-quart mason jar, and strain the still-hot herbal mixture over the birch syrup. Stir or whisk to dissolve.

Add the remaining 1 quart of filtered water. Stir to combine.

Touch the liquid with your finger or use a milk thermometer to gauge the temperature. Before you add the ginger bug, kefir grains, or whey, the liquid needs to cool to about 100º F. This was the temperature the alewife would call blood warm. It should feel just warm to the touch but not hot.

Add the ginger bug, kefir grains, or whey, screw on the lid, and leave for 2 to 4 days in a warm place.

Strain equal amounts into two glass bottles with screw tops. I use the bottles from Gerolsteiner mineral water. If they are 1-quart bottles, they should be full; if they are 1-liter bottles, add enough water to fill. Screw the lids on tightly, label and date the bottles, and return to the warm place for another 2 to 3 days.

Transfer to the fridge. Once they are cold you can enjoy them anytime! When you are ready to drink the root beer, open the bottles carefully because they may have built up a lot of carbonation. Open them outside or over a sink. Turn the lid very slowly to see if the drink begins to release foam. If so, then allow it to release some of the carbon dioxide by not opening the bottle all the way and letting out some of the pressure, then opening it more and more, bit by bit. This way you won’t lose your drink to its carbonation.

Sourdough is a simple wild ferment made from nothing but flour and water. You can start a batch today, use it in a few days, and keep it alive and bubbling … well …  forever.

If you have the patience, enjoy the flavor of sourdough, and can commit to feeding your quiet new “pet” frequently, you can develop a vibrant colony of mixed yeasts and bacteria and keep it going indefinitely. There are stories of legendary, long-lived sourdough cultures — maybe yours could join their ranks. Some were smeared on handkerchiefs, dried, and brought across the sea when folks immigrated to America. Some, like San Francisco’s famous culture, are just the unique ecology of microorganisms from a certain place.

What fun flavors will your kitchen-ecology develop? There’s only one way to find out.

Let New York Times best-selling author Sandor Katz guide you through the process and concepts you’ll need to tend to your sourdough and ensure it has a long and bubbly, er, happy, life. Here is an excerpt from his latest book, The Art of Fermentation.

Sourdough - An Excerpt from The Art of Fermentation

One thing we all know is that where our food comes from and how it is grown matters. It matters to our sense of place and community, to our sense of taste and biodiversity, and, most importantly, to our relationship with the environment.

We believe that having control over your food supply—whether you’re an educational farm at Green Mountain College or just someone who cares about where your food is grown—is key to a more resilient, sustainable foodshed.

A major part of Chelsea Green’s mission is to inspire you with ideas and practical tips. So whether you want to get your hands in the dirt and grow fresh vegetables; find a new recipe for using the food in your CSA box; or preserve those vegetables you just learned how to grow—we have the book for you, and best of all we’ve put some of our keystone food books on sale this month.

Chelsea Green believes in publishing books that you will turn to time and time again. We don’t cater to fads or flash-in-the-pan trends, but rather we focus on being a resource for timeless, traditional skills.

Happy reading from the folks at Chelsea Green Publishing.

Home Baked: Nordic Recipes and Techniques for Organic Bread and Pastry

Retail Price: $39.95 Sale Price: $25.97

Bakers interested in taking their breadmaking to the next level will love our new book Home Baked, a richly-illustrated and recipe-driven book on Nordic baking (both sweet and savory). Written by Hanne Risgaard, and translated by her daughter, Marie-Louise, Home Baked comes to us from a Danish family that not only bakes beautiful breads, but grows all the grains organically and grinds them on site. The results are inspiring — and mouthwatering.

Nordic cuisine, at the moment, is very much on the minds of chefs and diners in the United States. Why?

Chelsea Green Senior Editor Makenna Goodman says, “There is so much interest in Nordic cuisine right now, and part of that is because of the unique ecological twists in Scandinavian recipes — lots of interest in foraging and fermentation, for example. So, if you love bread and baking, and you’re interested in unique ingredients like stinging nettles and protein-filled grain that’s closer to its traditional cousin, then this book is the one for you.”

The book includes gorgeous color photographs, step-by-step instructions on working dough, information on spelt and rye, as well as common wheat.

The Risgaard’s story of turning their conventional family farm into a place that could produce “the world’s best flour…or get as close as possible,” was recently featured in Bread, an online magazine. Read the full Bread interview here.

Taste, Memory: Forgotten Foods, Lost Flavors, and Why They Matter   Retail Price: $17.95  Sale Price: $11.67   Taste, Memory traces the experiences of modern-day explorers who rediscover culturally rich forgotten foods and return them to our tables for all to experience and savor. Author David Buchanan shares stories of slightly obsessive urban gardeners, preservationists, environmentalists, farmers, and passionate cooks, and weaves anecdotes of his personal journey with profiles of leaders in the movement to defend agricultural biodiversity.  Taste, Memory begins and ends with a simple premise: that a healthy food system depends on matching diverse plants and animals to the demands of land and climate. In this sense of place lies the true meaning of local food. Read Chapter One: Seeds of an Idea…. The Art of Fermentation: An In-Depth Exploration of Essential Concepts and Processes from Around the World   Retail Price: $39.95  Sale Price: $25.97 We can confidently say that this is the most comprehensive guide to do-it-yourself home fermentation ever published. Sandor Katz presents the concepts and processes behind fermentation in ways that are simple enough to guide a reader through their first experience making sauerkraut or yogurt, and in-depth enough to provide greater understanding and insight for experienced practitioners. A New York Times Bestseller! While Katz expertly contextualizes fermentation in terms of biological and cultural evolution, health and nutrition, and even economics, this is primarily a compendium of practical information—how the processes work, parameters for safety, techniques for effective preservation, troubleshooting, and more. Read Michael Pollan’s enusiastic and inspired Foreword. READ IT HERE…. OR take a peak of an excerpt on Sourdough. READ IT HERE… From Asparagus to Zucchini: A Guide to Cooking Farm-Fresh Seasonal Produce   Retail Price: $19.95  Sale Price: $12.97 Ever wonder how you’ll ever be able to use all your vegetables? From Asparagus to Zucchini answers the question of what to do with your armloads of greens, exotic herbs (and the never-before-seen vegetables), with recipes that are as concise and doable as they are appealing. Created for and by Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) members, the book is an indispensable tool for anyone who wants to eat seasonally and locally. Organized by vegetable—53 in all—each section includes nutritional, historical, and storage information, as well as cooking tips. With more than 420 original recipes created, tested, and enjoyed by chefs, CSA members, and farmers, you’ll never be without a delicious recipe to make the most of the season’s bounty. Fresh From Maine, 2nd Edition: Recipes and Stories from the State’s Best Chefs   Retail Price: $32.50 Sale Price: $21.13 In the 2nd edition of Fresh From Maine, author Michael Sanders takes you deep into the world of 25 Maine chefs, their stories, challenges, secrets, and triumphs. More than 80 recipes, nearly half of them new to this edition and all brought to life by Maine photographer Russell French, capture the true bounty of this land and its waters. Each chef’s cuisine is very much his own, but they share one thing: they all work in the sustainable idiom with local farmers, animal raisers, and fishermen to bring the best, all-natural food, much of it organic, to their tables. Join us in discovering culinary outposts and innovative chefs all over the state, from Fryeburg to Hallowell, from Bangor to Brunswick and coastal Maine from Kittery to Mount Desert.  Long Way on a Little: An Earth Lover’s Companion for Enjoying Meat, Pinching Pennies and Living Deliciously   Retail Price: $32.50   Sale Price: $22.72 More than just a cookbook, Long Way on a Little presents Hayes’ practical knowledge about integrating livestock into a sustainable society with her accessible writing and engaging wit. Designed to be the only meat book a home cook could ever need, Long Way on a Little is packed with Hayes’ signature delicious no-fail recipes for perfect roasts and steaks cooked indoors and out on the grill, easy-to-follow techniques to make use of the less-conventional, inexpensive cuts that often go to waste, tips on stretching a sustainable food budget, and an extensive section on using leftovers and creating soups; all with the aim of helping home cooks make the most effective and economical use of their local farm products or their own backyard livestock.     Slow Wine   Retail Price: $25.00 Sale Price: $16.25 Slow Wine adopts a new approach to wine criticism and looks beyond what is in the glass. A wine cannot be judged by scores, symbols or other numerical evaluations, but needs to be assessed in a broader context. The guide centres round the agronomical efforts of cellars, describing vines planted, vineyards tended and the philosophy underpinning the work of winemakers. Three sections describe the cellars in their entirety: Life, the stories of the leading players in the world of winemaking; Vines, profiles of vineyards according to their characteristics and the way they are managed; and Wines, straightforward descriptions backed up by comprehensive statistics. “We are the only wine guide that visits each winery, so the information is first-hand,” said editor Giancarlo Gariglio of the 200-person staff it takes to put the guide together each year. “We visit the vineyard, the cellar, and taste with the producer.” Cooking Close to Home: A Year in Seasonal Recipes   Retail Price: $34.95 Sale Price:  $22.72 A collection of over 150 original recipes designed to follow the seasons using the foods available in your region. Whether you are a home gardener, a farmers’ market regular, or a member of a community-supported agriculture program, this cookbook will serve as a seasonal guide to using the foods available in your region. Each recipe includes useful “Harvest Hints” that explain how to find, purchase, prepare, and preserve fresh and seasonal ingredients. Flip to the last chapter for recipes and tips on preserving the harvest: jam, pesto, pickles, and more. BROWSE THE ENTIRE BOOK…

**Titles on Sale until November 15th**