Notes from a country kitchen

by Jocasta Innes

This book has been written for all those people who would like to have a try at drying mushrooms... making sausages... curing hams... smoking fish... brewing beer... pressing cheese... if they could only find clear, practical instructions and the relevant information on how long it takes and whether, finally, it's worth the trouble.

The range of activities covered is comprehensive -- baking, bottling, brewing, cheesemaking, curing, drying, pickling, salting, smoking -- and all of it would have been part of the inherited expertise of a country house-wife a century ago. Jocasta Innes combines the best of the old ways and recipes with a keen appreciation of the advantages of modern methods and gadgets. She doesn't dwell on nostalgia for nostalgia's sake but puts results first. It's what your homemade sausage filling tastes like that matters, not whether it was put into a casing mechanically or by human hand.

The many lively illustrations, all of them based on the author's own experience, demonstrate everything from making your own marmalade and chutney to building a smoke oven and plucking a pheasant, while the full page color photographs capture the quality of the recipes. Throughout the book, whether she's explaining how to pickle onions or fillet a fish, Jocasta Innes writes with a charm and directness that undoubtedly reflect the glowing pleasure of producing her own home-made and wholesome food.

248 pages, Hardcover

Published January 1, 1979

Reviews

[Darklysewn · Rating 5 out of 5]

I found this book over 10 years ago, and it's my favorite cookbook. this instructs on how to do everything. from canning and perserving, to skinning and and cooking your own livestock. this is a survival book like none other out there. if you get one cookbook in your lifetime. get this one.

[Bryn]

This seems a very good reference for people interested in the sort of food-related tasks that used to be common -- making cheese, drying fruit, pickling, smoking meats, etc -- but are now rare. I did not try any of the recipes, however, so take my rating with a grain of salt. Some of the directions seemed overly wordy and once or twice I think she needed a copyeditor as she repeated sentences in a way that made things nonsensical, or said 'This is easy and all you need to do and you should never do Thing X which is too difficult' and then immediately said 'Everyone should do Thing X, it is very easy' which was confusing. An interesting book to look over, but I would guess there are more modern takes on the techniques -- it might be most interesting to someone who has already learned the technique and is looking for new applications (ie: has learned how to make wine and thus would find the recipe for 'may blossom wine' interesting & unusual).