Preserving Food

[diggernotdreamer]

I just saw this on Facebook from Real Seeds, looks quite interesting, quite detailed information on all aspects of food preservation

http://journeytoforever.org/farm_library/AD3.pdf

[doofaloofa]

Good one DnD

I have a book called 'Putting Food By' (ISBN 0-8289-0163-5)
It's old (1974)and American, so there is a lot of sugar involved in most recipes, but is quite informative on the technical side of food preservation

Covers meat as well

[JonathanJ]

Vegetable Leather.

I came across this way of preserving food some time ago. Has anyone tried it? http://nchfp.uga.edu/how/dry/veg_leathers.html

[Zech]

I've tried fruit leathers and plan to make some this year. I find they use far less sugar than jam!

Haws are a good high-pectin fruit with not much flavour of their own (that I can detect, anyway) to mix with stronger tasting fruit such as rosehips (never quite sure what I'd do with rosehip syrup).

[daffodiltulip]

I made some recently with quinces (traditional Spanish item called membrillo, which I think is simply their word for quince) - HAD to use sugar. I wasn't confident enough to keep it cooking and took it off the heat a wee bit to soon, which meant I had to leave it to dry out in the fridge for a few weeks. A traditional and very popular one in the ME is made with apricots and is readily available in shops - it's called something like kammareldine. They also use it to make sweets, wrapping it around nougat, for instance. Can these fruit sheets be made without sugar?

[Zech]

As far as I've gathered, there are two approaches to making fruit leather. One, as for membrillo, is basically a very thick jam, so depends on sugar and pectin for the set. The other, like the link above, is more like dried fruit, except that the fruit is pureed before drying. That's the method I use, and add only a little sugar to taste. If you were using sweet fruit (or didn't want it sweet) then I'm sure you could make it without any sugar at all. I boil the puree until it's quite thick (most of the water has evaporated) then spread it quite thinly on a baking sheet and dry it in a very low oven for a few hours (I don't have a dehydrator).