Hands down, this is my favorite of all of your posts ever!!! As I was reading, I was thinking that I would comment, maybe your next book should be about preserving. So I am thrilled to know that there will be an entire chapter in your upcoming book. I make all sorts of jams, but my signature preserve is eggplant caponata. After a trip to Sicily, I now add a little chocolate from Modica. Inspired by a recent trip in the Alta Langhe, I am going to try to replicate a scrumptious Giardiniera Piemontese. Grazie mille!
What an excellent post!! Buon lavoro! Grazie mille!! I have always loved a well-stocked pantry, and I adore jars and jars of various preserves.
What I especially enjoyed about this post was hearing the stories of your mother and grandmother, as well as learning about the strong tradition behind what you do and why you love it so much. Thank you again for sharing this special post.
So many memories - thanks for the post. Like you my mother and grandmother routinely canned. Legend has it that Grandma Hazel put up 1,000 jars one year.
I've been canning ever since I can remember, first helping my Mom or Grandma, then in my own kitchen. This year added candied citrus peels (thanks for the recipe and encouragement, Guilia!). Peaches, tomatoes, of course, and blackberries, cherry plums, and what ever we have or can find in excess during the summer. In the early fall, my favorite is to can apple pie filling - two jars make a full pie to enjoy after the apple season wanes.
Oh yes! My mother would also have canning marathons! I remember pantry shelves lined with canned apricots, plums and pears, pickled pigs feet, whole chickens, Hungarian pickled peppers, dill pickles and probably more! I do a lot of freezing and drying and some canning. It does take time. Right now I have basil and parsley to turn into pesto that I'll freeze and yes, in the winter, there is something wonderful about enjoying a plate of pasta with pesto I made myself especially when it's at least partly made from ingredients I picked myself. I would like to make vin de noix and, well the list is endless!!!
This afternoon I am making plum juice to can. This is after spending the morning picking white peaches and tending the garden (tomatoes, cukes picked today).
Late in the season (Octoberish) will be the salsa party. You bring the ingredients and we all chop and share together. Preferably at the full moon.
Batch canning it is in my little kitchen. But when i read your beautiful story i want a big garden and the whole day “preserving” the seasons. Your stories always make me dreaming, happy dreaming! I wish the book was ready sooner…but something to look forward, that is a fact.
Seville orange marmalade, limoncello, pickled chillies, bread and butter cucumbers, plum jam and sauce, sweet chilli sauce, halved stonefruit. Wonderful ways to use the glut of home-grown food.
At the end of the Summer, when there are tomatoes that are rock hard and will never ripen, it's time for Bread and Butter/Sweet and Sour pickled green tomatoes. They have become my pantry staple and hostess gift when invited to a friend's home for dinner. 45 years ago when there was more time in my life there were the sweet fruit preserves in the Spring. My love of the savory and all things pickled has changed my pantry over the years.
What a wonderful post. My mother only made orange marmalade and occasionally watermelon rind pickles. I got the canning bug as a young Navy wife in the 70’s and ran with it thru the 90’s going to pick your own fields for beans, corn, blueberries, strawberries , peaches and apples. Jams, corn relish, filled green beans filled a cupboard as well as plain canned tomatoes, beans corn etc. Sadly most farms are housing developments and it’s gotten hard to find fields. I do miss that period of life a lot.
Not yet, but it’s on my kitchen bucket list! I dream of jars lined up like little treasures: peach jam, pickled onions, maybe tomato sauce if I’m feeling bold.
Beautiful memories, much like my own. We preserved everything and to a child it was just work and the same old food all the time. But looking back, I feel and smell the beauty in it all and want to wake myself as a child up to how wonderful all of it was. The smell of peaches canning and berry cobbler brings me back every time.
Now I do what I can with what I have, but nothing like we did on the farm. We too went up into our hills and picked blackberries in the cool of summer mornings and worked in the sweltering heat of summer to preserve our harvest. Our basement shelves were lined with our work and would carry our large family through the winter. If only then I could have seen what a treasure chest those shelves were!
Thank you for your wonderful reflections! Did I read correctly that you are producing a new cookbook? Any idea when it will be out? I have and love your first one!
That legacy of family preserves really is something to treasure, Giulia. Flavours, skills and recipes to last you a lifetime but it's equally important to find your own path.
The only other person in my family who enjoyed making their own preserves was my cousin. Her Seville marmalade was always in demand.
As for myself, I love what my larder can bring to the table - jams, jellies, fruit pastes, pickles, ketchup, cordials, vinegars and seasonal, fruity booze, too.
Of all these, I guess that my most unusual preserve comes from our garden rather than the hedgerows. We have a trio of bullace (wild plum) trees that make excellent jams, cordials and my spiced ketchup - a fruity sauce that crosses boundaries through sweetness, warm spice and the subtle heat of long pepper.
I love this and I think it’s a great idea. I participated in the preserving marathons as a child. I was mostly required to help with the salsa making, but we also did lots of sott’oli. The salsa was great, but it was super hot and tiring, and I have mixed feelings about it.
Hands down, this is my favorite of all of your posts ever!!! As I was reading, I was thinking that I would comment, maybe your next book should be about preserving. So I am thrilled to know that there will be an entire chapter in your upcoming book. I make all sorts of jams, but my signature preserve is eggplant caponata. After a trip to Sicily, I now add a little chocolate from Modica. Inspired by a recent trip in the Alta Langhe, I am going to try to replicate a scrumptious Giardiniera Piemontese. Grazie mille!
What an excellent post!! Buon lavoro! Grazie mille!! I have always loved a well-stocked pantry, and I adore jars and jars of various preserves.
What I especially enjoyed about this post was hearing the stories of your mother and grandmother, as well as learning about the strong tradition behind what you do and why you love it so much. Thank you again for sharing this special post.
Just ordered another copy of Cucina Povera. It's a great gift for cooking enthusiasts.
So many memories - thanks for the post. Like you my mother and grandmother routinely canned. Legend has it that Grandma Hazel put up 1,000 jars one year.
I've been canning ever since I can remember, first helping my Mom or Grandma, then in my own kitchen. This year added candied citrus peels (thanks for the recipe and encouragement, Guilia!). Peaches, tomatoes, of course, and blackberries, cherry plums, and what ever we have or can find in excess during the summer. In the early fall, my favorite is to can apple pie filling - two jars make a full pie to enjoy after the apple season wanes.
Yes, canning memories. cheers, Fred
Oh yes! My mother would also have canning marathons! I remember pantry shelves lined with canned apricots, plums and pears, pickled pigs feet, whole chickens, Hungarian pickled peppers, dill pickles and probably more! I do a lot of freezing and drying and some canning. It does take time. Right now I have basil and parsley to turn into pesto that I'll freeze and yes, in the winter, there is something wonderful about enjoying a plate of pasta with pesto I made myself especially when it's at least partly made from ingredients I picked myself. I would like to make vin de noix and, well the list is endless!!!
This afternoon I am making plum juice to can. This is after spending the morning picking white peaches and tending the garden (tomatoes, cukes picked today).
Late in the season (Octoberish) will be the salsa party. You bring the ingredients and we all chop and share together. Preferably at the full moon.
Batch canning it is in my little kitchen. But when i read your beautiful story i want a big garden and the whole day “preserving” the seasons. Your stories always make me dreaming, happy dreaming! I wish the book was ready sooner…but something to look forward, that is a fact.
Seville orange marmalade, limoncello, pickled chillies, bread and butter cucumbers, plum jam and sauce, sweet chilli sauce, halved stonefruit. Wonderful ways to use the glut of home-grown food.
You've inspired me. I'll make some fig conserve and a plum jam today.
At the end of the Summer, when there are tomatoes that are rock hard and will never ripen, it's time for Bread and Butter/Sweet and Sour pickled green tomatoes. They have become my pantry staple and hostess gift when invited to a friend's home for dinner. 45 years ago when there was more time in my life there were the sweet fruit preserves in the Spring. My love of the savory and all things pickled has changed my pantry over the years.
What a wonderful post. My mother only made orange marmalade and occasionally watermelon rind pickles. I got the canning bug as a young Navy wife in the 70’s and ran with it thru the 90’s going to pick your own fields for beans, corn, blueberries, strawberries , peaches and apples. Jams, corn relish, filled green beans filled a cupboard as well as plain canned tomatoes, beans corn etc. Sadly most farms are housing developments and it’s gotten hard to find fields. I do miss that period of life a lot.
Not yet, but it’s on my kitchen bucket list! I dream of jars lined up like little treasures: peach jam, pickled onions, maybe tomato sauce if I’m feeling bold.
Beautiful memories, much like my own. We preserved everything and to a child it was just work and the same old food all the time. But looking back, I feel and smell the beauty in it all and want to wake myself as a child up to how wonderful all of it was. The smell of peaches canning and berry cobbler brings me back every time.
Now I do what I can with what I have, but nothing like we did on the farm. We too went up into our hills and picked blackberries in the cool of summer mornings and worked in the sweltering heat of summer to preserve our harvest. Our basement shelves were lined with our work and would carry our large family through the winter. If only then I could have seen what a treasure chest those shelves were!
Thank you for your wonderful reflections! Did I read correctly that you are producing a new cookbook? Any idea when it will be out? I have and love your first one!
That legacy of family preserves really is something to treasure, Giulia. Flavours, skills and recipes to last you a lifetime but it's equally important to find your own path.
The only other person in my family who enjoyed making their own preserves was my cousin. Her Seville marmalade was always in demand.
As for myself, I love what my larder can bring to the table - jams, jellies, fruit pastes, pickles, ketchup, cordials, vinegars and seasonal, fruity booze, too.
Of all these, I guess that my most unusual preserve comes from our garden rather than the hedgerows. We have a trio of bullace (wild plum) trees that make excellent jams, cordials and my spiced ketchup - a fruity sauce that crosses boundaries through sweetness, warm spice and the subtle heat of long pepper.
I love this and I think it’s a great idea. I participated in the preserving marathons as a child. I was mostly required to help with the salsa making, but we also did lots of sott’oli. The salsa was great, but it was super hot and tiring, and I have mixed feelings about it.