If you have a big pile of just harvested, or bought at a terrific sale, foodstuffs, Essential Food Preserving is your one-stop shop for every way to preserve it.
Freezing, canning, fermenting, preserving, drying and smoking are just a few of the ways to save your food for later consumption detailed here. After some brief chapters with the basics of each technique, the chapters are organized by type of food. This makes it easy to see your options if you have an abundance of carrots for example. The book even provides an easy to read chart of the advantages of each technique for each food. The charts are then followed by the recipes for each technique.
Overall, Essential Food Preserving is a great resource for those trying to reduce food waste. Many of the ideas here, like making bitters from leftover cherry pits and orange peels, are rarely seen in food preservation books. Truly this book really is essential for the homesteaders in all of us. 5 stars!
Thanks to NetGalley and Storey Publishing for providing me with an advanced review copy.