Customer Reviews

Pickled: Vegetables, Fruits, Roots, More--Preserving a World of Tastes and Traditions

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

In a world filled with celebrity chefs pasting their face on every possible cookbook, it's refreshing to see someone courageously return the spotlight to the real stars: food and you. Lucy Norris --thankfully-- assumes nothing in her writing. In addition to the clear recipes and personal stories, she includes information on pickle history, directions for safe canning, equipment lists, ingredients, resources, weights and measures. The range of recipes will encourage beginners and inspire the experienced chef alike. And many of the recipes can be eaten within 24 hours - perfect for entertaining, gift-giving, or the impatiently hungry. One word of advice: buy more than one copy of the book. You will find yourself wanting to share these recipes with your friends and family, and this book makes a perfect gift. They'll be thanking you for generations to come.

I think this book is fabulous. So cool that someone finally did a really nice book on this subject. The pictures are gorgeous and you can read it like a novel with all the little stories of different people and their backgrounds and recipes -- or you can get right into the pickling process and end up with stuff that you sort of never really thought you could make. I tried the mustard pickles and they were better than anything i've had out of a jar and took about 5 seconds to make. The Haitian Pikliz is insanely spicy, but I can't seem to keep it in my fridge between me and my husband. I can already see a gift idea for lots of my friends...a jar of pickles plus the book. How excellent.

As I looked over the other reviews, I saw only 1 of the 5-star raters talked about making pickles from this book. I did make 2 recipes so far, the Groysman's Fresh Pickles with Black Currant Leaves and the Cornichons. The Groysmans was good, a fermented pickle meant to be eaten in 2 weeks. The Cornichons recipe is, quite frankly, the worst pickle I have ever made. Extremely salty and extremely vinegary. I would not make the mustard pickles since they require the use of saccharine. I feel like the author did not test these recipes thoroughly enough and considering how expensive the book is, I was very disappointed overall. With the amount of time and effort we put into home preserving, the authors should make every effort to have perfect recipes that have been tested several times. I may try another pickle recipe from this book, BUT ... if you like fresh pickles, a really nice book is Easy Japanese Pickling in 5 minutes to 1 day by Seiko Ogawa. For regular canned pickles, I think Small-Batch Preserving by Ellie Topp is a really good book, although it covers all sorts of home preserves, not just pickles.

This books provides some good pickling recipes with introductions describing the history of that particular pickle, or where the recipe was obtained. It is a cute and often nostalgic book that would be a good addition to the bookshelf of any pickle lover. However, if you are looking for a comprehensive guide to pickling then you should look elsewhere. This could be considered akin to a small cookbook with some varied basic recipes, many of which are easy enough to do without much prior experience, but it lacks going into any depth into the pickling process and first time picklers and canners may be more comfortable starting out with a more thorough book such as The Joy of Pickling, Revised Edition: 250 Flavor-Packed Recipes for Vegetables and More from Garden or Market.

A fun book, my daughter and I have tried quite a few of the recipes.

I was aggravated I even paid for this book. It has very little to do with actual pickling and fermentation. Most of the recipes are simple modern day pour vinegar over your food type of pickles rather than actual lactic acid fermentation. Traditional recipes involved fermentation and had the added benefit of probiotic content. This book modernizes a lot of recipes and destroys that added benefit. The sauerkraut recipe even says to only let it sit for one day. That wouldn't even begin to be long enough for making sauerkraut. I showed this book to my grandma and she was very disappointed as was I. The traditions have definitely been lost with this book.

book is just great about pickling. tells about recipes how to
make pickling corn; pickles almost anything to the imagination well worth the money

For those interested in collecting single subject books, this is one to add to your collection. This basically covers all you need to know about pickles and how they are made throughout the world. It's like reading a personal note from a friend.

This book helped me fulfill my gift-giving needs for all the cooks on my list. It is not only informative and functional but it is so beautifully presented that it fits just as nicely on the coffee table as in the kitchen. Great recipes and great photographs combine to make one great book.