the artisanal food movement is exploding, drawing on old-world preserving methods such as curing, pickling, and smoking to create a new world of specialty meats, jams, cheeses, fish, game, and preserved vegetables. Chef Matthew Weingarten taps into this enthusiasm and brings a taste of the wild to the home table with Preserving Wild Foods.

His inspired recipes use a wide range of ingredients from the sea, fields, forest, fresh water, and gardens. Adventurous home cooks, farmers’ market fans, hunters, foragers, and preserving enthusiasts alike will delight at the chance to create these uniquely flavored preserves.

Weingarten brings a sense of place to every taste with his personal stories of foraging and harvesting many of the ingredients in their natural environments. Evocative photography and narrative text communicate the specialness of each food and how to best bring out and appreciate its unique flavors. Clear instructions make small-batch preserving techniques easily accessible to the home cook, from smoking fish to putting up jam, pickling vegetables, curing meat, and making candied preserves. The results are one-of-a-kind tastes and meals that carry within them memories of the wind, water, woods, gardens, and fields.