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The Joy of Pickling
The Joy of Jams, Jellies, and Other Sweet Preserves
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Archives
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- Ask Santa for Empty Jars
- Tart and Velvety Beet Tonic from Poland
- Move Over, Kale, for Yellow Cabbage Collard
- Canning Nectarines: Things the USDA Doesn’t Tell You
- Preserves with a Nordic Touch
- A Better Way to Make Cherry Chutney
- A New Fruit for Cooler Climates
- Sweet Violets for Jelly
- Hunting for Oregon Truffles
Category Archives: Food history
Save That Potato: The Makah Ozette
The one little potato tuber I planted in my city garden this year turned out to be a good choice: My single Makah Ozette plant yielded nearly 13 pounds of tubers. Until recently grown only by the Makah tribe of … Continue reading
Posted in Food history, Vegetables
Tagged Ark of Taste, indeterminate potato, Makah tribe, Ozette potato, Slow Food
19 Comments
Adventures with Almonds, Part I: The Marvelously Fragrant Hall’s Hardy Almond
This is the first part of a two-part series. I’ll publish the second, on making marzipan, shortly. In the meantime, you might check out two articles I recently published with Mother Earth News, “Finally, a Good Thermometer for Home Preserving” and … Continue reading
Posted in Food history, Nuts
Tagged almond extract, amygdalin, benzaldehyde, bitterness, Hall's Hardy almond, hardy almonds, Marcona almonds, One Green World, prussic acid, xenia
8 Comments
Now Aboard the Ark: Scio Kolace
New to Slow Food’s Ark of Taste are kolace (pronounced “ko-LA-chee”) from Scio, Oregon, my home for 21 years. I’m proud to have nominated these filled sweet yeast buns whose history is so tightly bound with that of the little … Continue reading
Posted in Food history, Sweet preserves
Tagged Ark of Taste, bread, Czechs, kolace, kolache, Oregon, poppy seed filling, recipe, Scio, Slow Food, ZCBJ
1 Comment
Shrub, Part I: The Story of a Drink
Is there any living man who now calls for shrub? You may still see it on the shelf of an old-fashioned inn; you may even see the announcement that it is for sale painted on door-posts, but no man regardeth … Continue reading
Taking the Wind Out of Jerusalem Artichokes
Does your spouse refuse to eat Jerusalem artichokes because they’re too—err—windy? Have you yourself abandoned your Jerusalem artichoke patch to the weeds or the pigs, because no human of your acquaintance would eat the damn things again? If so, you … Continue reading
Posted in Fermented foods, Food history, Pickles, Preserving science, Vegetables
Tagged fermentation, inulin, pickles, sunchokes, sunroots, topinambour
89 Comments
Purple Mustard from Homemade Must
The moment I spotted a little article about moutarde violette in a recent issue of Saveur, I got excited. Surely no one would think to flavor mustard with violets. So, could this be a kind of mustard prepared not with … Continue reading
Posted in Food history, Fruits
Tagged arrope, mostarda, mostillo, moutarde violette, Purple Condiment, saba
4 Comments
Dietary Propaganda, Hoover Style
I don’t know where my friend Raphaël stumbled upon this poster, but when he showed it to me I first thought it something new. It seemed, after all, to spell out the latest dietary consensus, a set of rules that … Continue reading
Limed Yum-Yum Pickles
Summer seemed to vanish suddenly a few days ago, when a mid-afternoon thunderstorm dumped two and a half inches of rain here in less than two hours, and a total of nearly five and a half inches by sunrise the … Continue reading
Posted in Food history, Pickles, Sweet preserves, Vegetables
Tagged bread-and-butter pickles, Crisp and Co., Mrs. Fanning, Mrs. Wages, pickling lime, recipe, Tom Peter
4 Comments
Pickling Watermelons Whole
In my blog post about Moldova I shared my daughter’s photo of watermelons that had been brined intact, and I promised to write about how to pickle watermelons in this way. Before watermelon season passes again, I want to share … Continue reading
A Mixed Pickle of Mixed Parentage
When Jennifer Burns Levin wrote about her encounter with atjar tjampoer in Amsterdam, I realized that this Indonesian-Dutch cousin of chow-chow was missing from my collection of recipes for the mixed pickles that originated in the East Indies and traveled … Continue reading
Posted in Food history, Pickles, Vegetables
Tagged acar campur, chow-chow, Dutch pickle, Indonesian pickle, mixed pickle, recipe, turmeric
7 Comments
