Customer Reviews

Pickles to Relish

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4 star:		(1)
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1 star:		(2)

 

 

Pickles to Relish
If you are an adult or a kid or ever eaten a pickle or wanted a relish, chutney, etc. to add zest to your food and enhance your life, don't waste any time in reading this multi-faceted book. As the author Beverly Ellen Schoonmaker Alfeld notes, "not all the recipes are canning recipes." You can also refrigerate and freeze the many tasty delights. What could be better than a "pickled green walnut on a filet mignon", to "Hot Crocodile Chutney" or "Hot Beekeepr's Relish to zip up your life, health and make you feel good! You'll get insight to a better way of life if you read this book and adopt some of the "Jam Lady's sage advice on everything from one's lifestyle to instructing your kids to give them a more meaningful existence on how and where our food comes from! You will be instructed on how to make a simple pickle, relish, chutney, sauce and a whole lot more. You will be given the history of many foods. There is valuable data included throughout the book. There is verything from the pH of foods, instructions on proper labeling, listings of stores, pickle events, proper canning techniques, safeguards, and how you can modify a recipe like corn relish and make it "extra hot to "not so hot". Information is given about the myriad of sweetners that can be selected for the recipes. There are recipes that don't need any sweetener for people that are intolerant. There is extensive information throughout the book in the form of pictures,charts and appendixes. I highly recommend the "Jam Lady's PICKLES To RELISH book. You will be enriched.

Alfeld does it again with another book that not only educates you, but also inspires you. Pickles to Relish is another must-have for canners, home cooks and experts alike.

Beverly Alfeld is an educator, horticulture expert, and cookbook author. Having completed the school of instruction in food processed by the Food and Drug Administration, she is the perfect candidate to pen a cookbook about how to pickle food without fear of contamination.

Pickles to Relish is a comprehensive guide to educating new people, as well as experienced cooks in the art of food preservation. With Alfeld's knowledge on the processing method, you too will feel confident as you embark on your latest culinary adventure. With pickles, relishes, chutneys and sauces, not only will you learn how to preserve food but you will discover numerous recipes worth trying. Included in this book is a pH guide, a resource guide and also where to go to share your love of pickles with other picklers!

Pickles to Relish is also beautifully photographed by seasoned photographer, Jim Smith. His work has been featured in advertising, books, hotels and in fine art stores.

Some of my favorite recipes I tried from this book are: Jamlady's Bunny Relish, Spicy Pickled Blueberries and Basic Pumpkin Chutney.

With the holidays approaching, pick up a copy of Pickles to Relish. During these harsh economic times, growing our own food is practical, as well as more healthful. Then, you can utilize your bumper crops in a more creative fashion and will have some lovely gift ideas too! By the way, even Charlie Trotter gives his kudos to this gem!

Other titles by this author: The Jamlady Cookbook.

When I read the play on words in the title of Pickles to Relish I suspected that this was not a dull canning book. I was sure of it when I saw the striking cover photo with the most beautiful array of pickles I've ever seen! No basic Farm Extension Service canning guide here; no, this book overflows with creative ideas and recipes. There are, of course, the standards such as bread and butter pickles, kosher dills, and sweet pickle relish; but then there are instructions for pickled nuts, pickled bananas (Who knew you could do that?), pickled eggs, pickled mushrooms with shrimp, as well as a variety of chutneys and relishes.

Author Beverly Ellen Schoonmaker Alfeld includes historical and scientific notes about pickled food as well as complete how-to instructions. Furthermore, she has put the crucial text in bold print so that a reader in a hurry can go through the book and read only what is highlighted or a reader with more time can read the details of the entire text. Even though there are color photographs every few pages, I found myself wishing there were more. They are not needed for clarity of the recipes, but they do show just how scrumptious the pickles and relishes can look.

One aspect of this book that I particularly liked was the way Alfeld occasionally suggests ways to use pickles other than the obvious relish tray. For example, fill endive leaves with red pepper relish, lobster meat, basil, and a squeeze of lemon juice. Make a dip by topping sour cream with a fruity tomato chutney. Or use a pickled kumquat to garnish a flute of champagne.

Interesting, fun, and instructive. I relish Pickles to Relish.

A bushel of cucumbers freshly gathered from a local farm stand sent me to my cookbooks for pickle recipes. Whiling away an afternoon in experimentation, I realized I needed more direction to ensure a safe and delicious product. Jamlady's PICKLES TO RELISH was the resource I needed. Ms. Alfeld's book is totally portable and readable, complete with science and folklore. The recipes are easy to follow and produce delectable results. The step-by-step processing directions helped me to realize the vital steps I had missed in prior attempts to follow other recipe books. The pictures are beautiful and artistic in composition. Not only does Jamlady inform how to pickle vegetables and fruit in both basic and creative ways, she also suggests ways to integrate the results into meals. I can imagine taking this collection with me on my next plane trip for an enjoyable and informative read. This book also makes a wonderful gift. I recommend it to the novice as well as the seasoned pickler.

I bought this book because I love pickles. Now I sure I will start to love relishes and chutney just as much. This book is so much fun, you want to put it down and run into the kitchen and start cooking. I am not much of a chef, but this book is so easy to understand, I am sure I will make some great foods for my family and friends. Many thanks to the author, this is a fabulous book.

This book is almost the theory of pickling. Almost. It feels like the author has a lot of understanding about pickles but was unable or unwilling to present that info in a logical, helpful way. And there are other problems.

For instance, the author recommends using a pH meter when testing recipes. I think that's a good idea; I use a pH meter to make sure things that might go south haven't. That said, the author does things like recommend the use of a pH meter to test recipes that she herself has come up with and put in the book. I think if you are selling a book of pickle recipes, the recipes should be safe, period. No one should be expected to have a pH meter to make some pickles. Or the author says things like "when in doubt [about the pH], refrigerate." There is no point in making pints of pickles if you are going to store it all in the fridge. The whole reason for pickling in batches is so you can store it in the pantry and use it later, no?

But most of all, I found more fear-mongering in this book than in all the other pickling books I've read combined, including the wonderful Putting Things By, which refers to the CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report re botulism poisoning. Pickles to Relish made me feel like I was handling plutonium instead of pickles. And I am not one of those idiots who goes around harrumphing "I have canned string beans in a boiling water bath for 100 years and no one has died from my canning yet!" But there is such a thing as going too far in the opposite direction. This book will seriously undermine any confidence you might have about preserving.

The author uses a lot of quirky nomenclature that makes for confusion, such as RWB instead of BWB. Why not just stick with what is used? This quirkiness doesn't work well with the highly problematic layout, such that the little intro to a recipe is formatted to occur at the end of the previous recipe and is separated off from that recipe by a decorative doodad. Whoever thought of doing it this way does not have a clue about making information easy to use.

I held off quite a while on reviewing this book, hoping it would grow on me. Instead, I have just become more irritated with it. I have gotten a lot more wear and tear out of another book that I got at the same time, Canning for a New Generation. Even though I am not of the new generation (ahem), I have found that the New Generation book has good recipes and encourages you to stretch a bit, like by utilizing apples for pectin--which got me to put up a bunch of homemade pectin for future use. And if you want to make pickles in small batches to store in the fridge, check out Quick Pickles. The turnips pickled in gin is delish.

We love to pickle. This book had some great new receipes in it. Had alot of different receipes that you never think of and gives your table a twist on food.

This book was disorganized, horribly laid out, and full of unhelpful diatribes. It was often hard to tell if a paragraph was part of the previous recipe or an intro to the next. With so many other excellent, well-organized books out there (I'm currently using The Joy of Pickling by Linda Ziedrich, and it's great), I can see no reason why any average cook would want this book. If you are an absolute pickling expert, then maybe check this out of the library, but it's not a book I would recommend to anyone.

Was an editor involved in this book? If so, that person needs to hang their head in shame. What could have been a fascinating combination of culinary lore, food science, practical instruction, and history is a horrible mash of words alternating between boldface and regular print for no apparent reason. The recipes veer wildly between scientific precision and seat-of-the-pants variations. Oh, and recipes wander oddly across the page, again, mushed together as if paper were scarce. Photos are beautiful but often next to a completely unrelated recipe. Beginners beware! Experienced picklers might find this tome exciting, in the way that rickety wooden roller coasters are exciting.

Beverly Ellen Schoonmaker Alfeld's Pickles to Relish is a lovely book containing a lot of recipes. It looks like a culmination of a life's work. There is liberal use of bold font, which makes my eyes go directly to those sections. Chapter 1 covers various aspects of the Processing Method such as pH meters, altitude conversion, reactive metals and avoiding problems. Chapter 2 Pickles, Power, and Agro-Processing discusses diverse historical pickle topics from Cherokees, Japanese Fermentation, Cassava, Food as Medicine, to Sumerian Beer. Chapters 3 to 5 are recipes for Relishes, Pickles, and Chutneys and Sauces. There are appendixes for Approximate pH of Foods, Information Guide and Annual Pickle Festivals or Events. There is also an Index. Not every recipe has a photo. There is at least one recipe with photos for several steps. The recipes look delicious. If you love pickling, you will defiantly want to add this book to your collection! KWR, Asst. Editor, Organic Family Magazine