International Recipes and Cooking Around the World

Preserving: Method and Recipes

Stacks of home-canned goods

Image by ccarlstead

Before the days of electric refrigeration, the best way to get food to last through lean times was through various methods of preservation. Drying, curing, brining, pickling, fermenting and smoking are a few of the many techniques our ancestors used to stretch the bounty of the harvest and the prize of the hunt.

These days, modern refrigeration, pasteurization, factory canning and chemical preservatives have largely replaced the old ways when it comes to keeping our food safer for longer. Yet the ancient methods have all survived modernization for the simple reason that they make so much food so tasty.

International Recipes for Preserving

Pikliz

Pikliz (Haitian spicy pickled vegetables)

(Haitian spicy pickled vegetables)

Rumtopf

Rumtopf (German rum-soaked fruit dessert)

(German rum-soaked fruit dessert)

Torshi

Jars of vegetable torshi

(Iranian, Afghan pickled vegetables)

Gari

Gari Japanese pickled ginger

(Japanese pickled ginger)

Leems

Leems (Moroccan preserved lemons)

(Moroccan preserved lemons)

Okra Pickles

Fresh okra

(American, Southern-Soul garden refrigerator pickle)