The River Cottage farm, established by British food personality Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall to promote high-quality, seasonal, and sustainable food, has inspired a television series, restaurants and classes, and a hit series of books. In this new addition to the award-winning collection, River Cottage master preserver Pam Corbin helps you transform the abundance of your garden (and your friendsrs" and neighborsrs" gardens) into everything from simpleStrawberry Jamto scrumptious new combinations likeHoneyed Hazelnuts,Nasturtium "Capers,"Onion Marmalade,Spiced Brandy Plums,Elixir of Sage, plus a pantryful of other jams, jellies, butters, curds, pickles, chutneys, cordials, liqueurs, vinegars, and sauces.

PAM CORBIN has been making preserves for as long as she can remember, and for more than twenty years her passion has been her business. Pam and her husband, Hugh, moved to Devon where they bought an old pig farm and converted it into a small jam factory. Using only wholesome, seasonal ingredients, their products soon became firm favorites with jam-lovers the world over. Pam has now hung up her professional wooden spoon but continues to "jam" at home. She also works closely with the River Cottage team, making seasonal goodies using fruit, vegetables, herbs, and flowers from her own garden, and from the fields and hedgerows.
 
HUGH FEARNLEY-WHITTINGSTALL is a renowned British broadcaster, writer, farmer, educator, and campaigner for real food. The author of seven books, including the James Beard Award-winning River Cottage Meat Book, Hugh lives with his family on the River Cottage farm.

Contents

Introduction  6
Seasonality  8
The Rules  16
Jams & Jellies  34
Pickles, Chutneys & Relishes  84
Cordials, Fruit Liqueurs & Vinegars  120
Canned Fruits  150
Sauces, Ketchups & Oil-based Preserves  178
Notes to the U.S. Edition  200
Acknowledgments  204
Index  207

Seasonality
 
Preserving the bounties of our fruitful summer and autumn was normal -- a way of life -- not so many years ago. It was essential to stock up the larder for leaner months, when fresh food was scarce or unavailable and the sealed bottles and jars full of summer would help to allay the monotony of the winter diet. If soft summer currants and berries -- and gluts of sweet-smelling tomatoes and baskets of vegetables -- weren’tkeptin some form or another, then there would be no summer produce until the following year. There was no nipping down to the supermarket to buy, in the midst of January, a basket of strawberries or even a bag of tomatoes.
 
You don’t need to turn the clock back far, just a couple of generations to the 1950s, when to own a home refrigerator or a freezer was considered opulent, and of course fresh foods didn’t arrive each day of the week, each week of the year, by air and sea from all corners of the globe to flood shop shelves with produce that would otherwise be considered out of season.
 
The rationing of food in Britain that began during wartime finally finished in July 1954, nine years after the war had ended. The war years had seen the government allocating sugar to the Women’s Institute (WI) for jam making so that surplus produce did not go to waste. The extent of food preservation by the WI did not stop at jam making; these resolute ladies also canned fruit and vegetables for the national food supply. The end to those long years of rationing coincided with an increase in the variety of imported foods readily available throughout the year. Unquestionably, for many this has meant that the structure and meaningful importance of working and living the seasons, along with the necessity to preserve and not waste, have vanished from everyday life.
 
Following the seasons
 
Food is never more flavorsome or as good as when it is fresh and in season, making the riches of a good harvest a just reward for anybody who is prepared to take notice of and be guided by the seasons. For me, there’s not much to better a freshly dug new potato cooked up with a sprig of garden mint, and how these earthy roots can be thought of as humble is inexplicable, as they are a staple food worldwide. If stored correctly (dark and between 40° and 50°F), their firm and starchy bodies will keep naturally for months without any further action to preserve them.
 
Or, what could surpass devouring a plateful of freshly picked raspberries? These soft, juicy berries, however, will keep for barely a day or two before they begin to deteriorate, so action needs to be speedy to preserve them at their best. Raspberries are a wonderfully useful preserving ingredient, for they can be transformed into blissful jam, canned, turned into berry cordial, or used to make fruity vinegar, all to be put away and enjoyed later in the year.
 
By the very nature of the variable climate linked with each of the four seasons, much homegrown produce is available for limited periods, sometimes just a few swift weeks of the year, when crops of gluttish proportion are available to feast upon fresh and any surplus will be at its best preserved in some way or another. Ideally, produce to be preserved should be as fresh and local as possible, so every tasty scrap of its character is unmistakably captured. However, there are a few exceptions to thelocal rule, and until we see citrus groves swathing the land, the long-standing tradition of making marmalade to preserve the bitter Seville orange will continue, in addition to the use of tart, acidic lemon in all number of preserving and culinary recipes.
 
The familiarity of the pattern of the seasons and what each offers is fundamental to understanding how the preserving year is entwined with the growing seasons. The seasonal performance is undoubtedly the greates

---

Excerpted from The River Cottage Preserves Handbook by Pam Corbin
All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.