Preserving Italy: Canning, Curing, Infusing, and Bottling Italian Flavors and Traditions

Italians seem to preserve everything edible. Fruits, vegetables, meats, milk, seafood—all are put up using a variety of methods. Marchetti, inspired by the memory of a jar of exquisitely preserved cherries left in a Roman kitchen after her grandmother’s death, has gathered a wealth of traditional recipes for delights such as garlic scapes preserved in oil, vinegar-pickled beets with spring onions, fig jam with orange zest, salt-cured olives, pancetta, and limoncello. Recipe yields are reasonable: you can make just three pints of pickled zucchini. And there’s a nice running commentary about the places the recipes come from and when they are typically made. A serious book, but charmingly friendly. Color photographs throughout. Paperback.