Book Review: The Preserving Answer Book
The Preserving Answer Book: Expert Tips, Techniques, and Best Methods for Preserving All Your Favorite Foods by Sherri Brooks Vinton
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
The Preserving Answer Book isn’t just for home canners and preservers. It contains helpful information for anyone who buys fresh food and wants to store it in a way that keeps it fresh and wholesome for as long as possible. I learned many new-to-me techniques that will help me make my fresh food last longer.
I’ve been canning and dehydrating food for long-term storage for a couple of decades now. I depend on the standard canning books for their classic recipes, but they’re lacking in advice beyond canning. This would be a good companion book to have on hand.
Foodies like me might read it start to finish as if it were a novel, but novices could feel overwhelmed by the flood of advice which seems to spill out in no particular order. In fact, it reminds me a lot of how I learned to preserve food through conversations and anecdotes told to me by family members.
I hope this book is made available for sale in electronic formats. If you’ve just bought a bushel of apples, you could search on the word ‘apples’ and glean all sorts of advice from all over the book, for example. A paper version of this book will still be helpful, but you’ll be madly thumbing through the pages to find what you need to know.
Thank you to author Sherri Brooks Vinton, NetGalley, and Storey Publishing for allowing me to read a digital advance review copy of this book. This review is my honest and unbiased opinion.
Lori Alden Holuta
Lori Alden Holuta lives between the cornfields of Mid-Michigan, where she grows vegetables and herbs when she’s not writing, editing, or playing games with a cat named Chives.
