Pickling is one of the oldest methods of food preservation. The Chinese were fermenting vegetables as early as the third century B.C. By the first century A.D., Romans were pickling.
Pickled products appeared in America, too. The pickle barrel was common during the colonial days. Pickles even became part of our folklore as children learned to recite the “Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers” tongue-twister.
By the early 1920s, the U.S. Department of Agriculture had published instructions on making pickles at home. Many of these procedures are still used today.
In 1988, USDA published new home canning recommendations after doing extensive research. The information in this publication is based on USDA’s Complete Guide to Home Canning.
This guide will teach you:
- How to preserve foods by pickling.
- What is the difference between fermented and unfermented pickles?
- What type of equipment will I need for pickling vegetables?
- What types of ingredients are necessary?
- What type of vinegar and spices are best?
- What is the conventional boiling-water canner process?
- What is the lower-temperature pasteurization process?
- How should I store pickled vegetables?
This 20-page resource also highlights a variety of pickling vegetables recipes, including dill pickles, sauerkraut, sweet pickles, bread-and-butter pickles, sweet gherkin pickles, pickled asparagus, pickled dill beans, pickled three-bean salad, pickled beets, pickled hot peppers, marinated whole mushrooms and pickle relish.
Learn how to take your garden’s abundant vegetable produce and preserve it for a treat to share throughout the year!
