The Pantry & Preserving Handbook

There is a particular kind of contentment that comes from standing before a well-stocked pantry on a grey November morning — the shelves lined with jewel-bright jars, the air faintly sweet with the ghost of last summer's plums, the quiet knowledge that you have, in your own small way, outwitted the season. I learned this contentment from my mother, who learned it from hers, and it is the sort of knowledge that lives not in the head but in the hands — in the confident stir of a wooden spoon through bubbling jam, in the satisfying thunk of a sealed lid, in the instinct that tells you, without any thermometer, that the preserve is ready. This book is my attempt to pass that knowledge on to you, simply and honestly, as one might share a recipe scrawled on the back of an envelope, pressed into a friend's hand at the garden gate. You will find here no unnecessary fuss, no ingredients that require a journey to a specialist shop, only the faithful, unhurried craft of turning what the garden and the hedgerow and the market stall have given us into something that will see us warmly and well through whatever the leaner months may bring.

A full larder is a quiet kind of wealth. When the orchard is heavy and the hedgerows bright, I preserve — and all winter long I open a jar and taste September again. Preserving frightens people, but it needn't. It asks only for clean jars, a little patience, and the willingness to try. I have written down my safest, most trusted methods so that you may line your own shelves with rows of amber and ruby, and never waste the season's bounty again.

— Agnes