The Perfect Pickle Book

by David Collison (Author), David Mabey (Author), David Collison (Author), David Mabey (Author)

• Used

  Paperback
  1988

  $3.25

  Many people's image of pickle is limited to a jar of Branston or a purchase at the church fete. This is an introduction to the extraordinary range and variety of pickles and contains over 150 recipes from all over the world, including India, the Middle East, the Far East, Scandinavia, the Caribbean, Eastern Europe and Britain. Pickling is an art requiring skill, subtlety and experience as well as patience and timing, but no two jars are ever quite the same. The recipes in this book are accompanied by techniques and hints to help the cook along the path to the perfect pickle. David Mabey has written other cookery books and is one of the presenters of the BBC2 series The Perfect Pickle , of which David Collinson is the producer.

• Used

  Paperback
  2007

  $9.02

  This original edition of this book started life in 1988 as an accompaniment to the six-part BBC2 TV series The Perfect Pickle Programme , which has subsequently been seen worldwide in countries as far apart as Slovenia and Japan. It went on to appear in three editions. What has happened since then has been little short of a revolution. Delicatessen and farm shop shelves are crammed with pickles, as well as salsas, vinegars, pastes and chutneys; these spiced-up specialities are all the rage and have become the in-vogue accompaniments of the moment. It's easy to understand their attraction: they are assertive and potent, but can also be subtle; sometimes they assault the palate, sometimes they tease with their piquancy. Cooks at home know that they can add a buzz to quite ordinary food. Fresh produce has always been at the heart of good pickling, and home-grown is best of all. Increasing numbers of allotment holders are subscribing to the notion of 'plant it, pick it and pickle it', precisely because it makes economic as well as culinary sense. Farmers' markets, which are spreading throughout the country at an astonishing rate (there are now over 500), are also a fruitful and profitable prospect for small-scale pickle and chutney makers, who are able to sell their wares without having to negotiate needless 'food miles'. And we mustn't forget those staunch and valiant members of the Women's Institutes, who continue to fly the flag for all things honest and homemade. Hopeful signs, indeed. But it isn't simply fashion: the number of city restaurants and country pubs now offering home-pickled red cabbage, pickled walnuts and piccalilli (which can be served with anything from deep-fried goats' cheese or ham hock terrine to seared scallops) is astonishing. Cooks and chefs of an older generation have also discovered a new passion for domestic industry (what the nineteenth-century radical William Cobbett dubbed 'cottage economy'): in the early days it was enough to bake your own bread, now full-scale home production is what counts. Legions of enthusiasts are bringing it all back home and they also understand how to succeed in business. The world really is our larder and pickles are back where they belong - on the front row. Here is a completely revised and updated edition of this popular and much in demand handbook with recipes not just for fruit and vegetable pickles but for pickled meats and fish.