Overview
This book has been written for all those people who would like to have a try at drying mushrooms... making sausages... curing hams... smoking fish... brewing beer... pressing cheese... if they could only find clear, practical instructions and the relevant information on how long it takes and whether, finally, it's worth the trouble.
The range of activities covered is comprehensive -- baking, bottling, brewing, cheesemaking, curing, drying, pickling, salting, smoking -- and all of it would have been part of the inherited expertise of a country house-wife a century ago. Jocasta Innes combines the best of the old ways and recipes with a keen appreciation of the advantages of modern methods and gadgets. She doesn't dwell on nostalgia for nostalgia's sake but puts results first. It's what your homemade sausage filling tastes like that matters, not whether it was put into a casing mechanically or by human hand.
The many lively illustrations, all of them based on the author's own experience, demonstrate everything from making your own marmalade and chutney to building a smoke oven and plucking a pheasant, while the full page color photographs capture the quality of the recipes. Throughout the book, whether she's explaining how to pickle onions or fillet a fish, Jocasta Innes writes with a charm and directness that undoubtedly reflect the glowing pleasure of producing her own home-made and wholesome food.