Preserving Food with Centre Terre Vivante: A Guide for Gardeners and Farmers on How to Store Food without Freezing or Canning

Raymond Dean White: This is a well put together, must have book for anyone who wants to learn how to preserve food without refrigeration.

United States on Feb 16, 2024

C from NY: This book provides doable and delicious alternatives to canning. There are processes that I didn't know I could do. It takes us back to the days of forgotten knowledge. I also like the variability in amounts and ingredients. I was able to customize according to what I had on hand. There were treasures that I will refer to again and again.

Canada on Dec 25, 2023

Amazon Customer: Really easy to follow individual recipes, beautifully put together, inspires you to get going with all the preserving techniques!

United Kingdom on Aug 06, 2023

paolovet: Bel libro, con una impaginazione retrò. Le ricette sono semplici anche se, a volte, alcuni ingredienti sono di uso non comune in Italia. Sarebbe interessante un'edizione in italiano con l'adattamento degli ingredienti e delle misure imperiali a quelle metriche.

Italy on Nov 26, 2022

Stronger than ever: I think that many people looking to buy a book like this will be aware that our planet is changing. From peak oil to climate change ~ and everything inbetween ~ some of us are thinking that life is likely to be very different at some point in the future, and best we prepare for how to adjust now!

This book will not disappoint such folk as it contains a host of energy efficient (indeed, many require NO energy!) concepts & recipes, and it is all soooo simple to follow. Ingredients are, for the most, readily available in your average pantry/local store and even measurements are not that necessary for many of the ideas.

I also love the way that the contributors personalities shine through each recipe, and the little snippets of history that can be gleaned from them.

All told, this is a wonderful, useful book which I've already given away to friends living off-grid in Eastern Europe to help them store this years crops (they loved it, so I couldn't leave them without it!), so I'm off to purchase another !

United Kingdom on May 29, 2013

Ross E. Nelson: I write and teach self-reliant, sustainable living. I've preserved my garden produce for decades. Since I discovered this book 5 yrs ago, it has consistently been in my Top Ten books you should have. This book teaches how to preserve almost every food you can grow without canning or freezing. For years my favorite go-to book on food preservation has been  Stocking Up: The Third Edition of America's Classic Preserving Guide  But this book goes into topics not covered in most food-preservation books. The key to good self-reliance and sustainability is to have a wide range of options, in case one crop fails or another overwhelms your freezer or pantry capacity. This book gives you that variety and weaves it into a complete, sustainable Whole.

The chapters on Root Cellaring and Drying are not as detailed as some might like, but there are dozens of books on those topics and anyone that has gardened or homesteaded for any time is very familiar with these techniques.

Where the book really shines is in the chapters on the lesser-known (and ages old) techniques of brining, lacto-fermentation and preserving in solutions such as oil, vinegar and alcohol. I attended a...

United States on Dec 19, 2012

Hélène: I'll need to give context here before starting this review. I bought this book with other books of the same kind, one about cold storage, another about preserving seeds. I read them all during spring and summer, thinking about now, in autumn and ready for the harvest and what to do with the produce coming out of my garden.

This book is the one I ended up using most because, unlike cold storage (which was also an excellent book I'm sure to use eventually), it is not time consuming to set up. It also always surprised me with gems of recipes to do with produces I didn't plan on preserving for the winter (nasturtium capers, rosehips in all forms, wines of all kinds...). The little piece of story at the beginning of the chapters are inspiring and well written. The recipes come from around the world, it is not just the experience of the writer. This book is a gold mine for someone who has too much of a produce and no cold storage in place and it's easy and fast to use ; pop the book at the end in the index and check what you can do with your surplus of peppers!

Canada on Oct 26, 2011

P. Remick: I'm so glad that this book exists! All the simple and proven methods of food preservation that any of us can use and all without a freezer or complicated sterilization processes.

What a joy to read about simple and natural methods that not only preserve fruits and vegetables, but that make them taste better and in many cases make them positively gourmet!

Every person should grab a copy of this book whether they grow their own vegetables or not. Imagine being able to purchase fruit in season at reasonable prices, and then take some of it and preserve it for the dark days of winter when it would be prohibitively expensive. Our forefathers (and those great foremothers that did the preserving and came up with the 'recipes')knew to preserve not only the bounty of the summer and fall harvest, but to preserve the nutrition that is stored in the produce.

Vinegar, oil, salt, alcohol, sugar, drying methods too simple to name were all developed so that they (and we!) can eat food fit for the Gods all winter until the spring harvests. Each one of us can make a simple salt and water brine and preserve green beans. Each one of us can string a multitude of fruits and...

United States on Aug 22, 2008