annieb123's Review of It Starts with Fruit

by Jordan Champagne

Jam making gets a bad rap for being highly technical, complicated,
messy, hot, and sticky; but preserving fruit can be simple and easy.

Jordan
Champagne unlocks the secrets of mouthwatering fruit sauces and
butters, delicious whole-fruit preserves, and fresh-tasting jams and
marmalades from the comfort of your home kitchen.

It Starts with Fruit features 73 recipes total: master recipes for each type of preserve, followed by recipes for jams, marmalade,
juices, syrups, shrubs, whole fruit preserves, butters, pie fillings,
and dried fruits, plus a final chapter on baking with preserves.

• Great for home cooks who want an easy and approachable guide to making jams and other fruit-based preserves

•
Jordan's gentle and encouraging methods will guide you through the
process of making incredible fruit preserves using seasonal produce.

• Learn inventive techniques that are more flavorful and less complicated than traditional methods—with less sugar, too!

Jordan
Champagne, author and cofounder of Happy Girl Kitchen, learned how to
make jam while working on a farm, trying to use up fruits and vegetables
that would otherwise go to waste. Now it's your turn to learn.

Recipes
include Raspberry Lemon Jam, Pink Grapefruit Marmalade, Honeyed
Apricots, and Peach Rosemary Syrup, as well as baking recipes to turn
your fabulous preserves into Thumbprint Cookies, Jam Bars, Fruit
Cobbler, and Homemade Toaster Pastries.

• A must-have for
anyone who wants to learn about making jam and other preserves, likes
experimenting in the kitchen, or enjoys DIY projects

• Approachable for first-timers who feel intimidated by jam-making

• Perfect for those who loved The Noma Guide to Fermentation by René Redzepi & David Zilber, The Blue Chair Jam Cookbook by Rachel Saunders, and Preserving by the Pint by Marisa McClellan

Originally published on my blog: Nonstop Reader.

It Starts with Fruit is a tutorial guide and recipe collection for preserving fruit by Jordan Champagne. Due out 12th May 2020 from from Chronicle Books, it's 288 pages and will be available in hardcover and ebook formats.

The book follows a logical format. The introduction covers food safety and handling, choosing and using the correct equipment for the job, processing options, and other info to ensure a successful outcome. The following chapters introduce fruits both in general and in an alphabetical (exhaustive) herbal list including some lesser known (to North American readers) fruits such as quince, loquat, and mulberries (along with all the standard popular ones familiar to everyone). The rest of the book contains recipes and tutorials arranged roughly by category: jams, drinks, whole fruits (including pie fillings, sauces, and butters), and recipes which don't fit easily into one of the above categories for such things as candied peels, salts, pickles, chutneys, and the like.

The recipes have their ingredients listed bullet style in a sidebar. Measurements are given in US standard with metric measures in parentheses. Special tools and ingredients are also listed, along with yields and cooking directions. The ingredients are all easily sourced at any moderately well stocked grocery store or farmer's market. The index is cross referenced and includes ingredients as item entries for quickly locating relevant recipes.

My one small quibble with the book is that the recipes are mostly not photographed. There are some photos, and they're clear and attractive, but they only represent about25-30 % of the recipes.

Well done. This book would make a great addition to the home cooking library. It is a nice supplement to the standard classics like the Ball Blue Book, and this one includes quite a lot of adventurous and appealing recipes (plum, cardamom, bay, and anise together in a shrub (drinkable sweetened light vinegar decoction - there are several shrub recipes included in the book and they're delicious and versatile).

Four and a half stars.

Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.

It Starts with Fruit

by Jordan Champagne

Reviewed by annieb123 on May 11, 2020

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