How to make the most of seasonal gluts

Learning how to preserve fruit and vegetables while they're fresh and bountiful is an economical, sustainable and mindful way of holding on to nourishing and delicious foods even when they're out of season. 

Julia Skinner: Wants to teach Irish people how to can food. Picture: Iain Bagwell

“The first thing to do is to start simple,” says Cork-based American food writer and culinary educator, Julia Skinner. She is an advocate for food preservation in all forms, but, as she explains in her latest book, Essential Food Preserving, it doesn’t have to be complicated. “Don’t try to do some really complex, time-consuming thing, if you don’t feel comfortable doing that,” she says over Zoom from Atlanta, Georgia, in the US, where she’s currently on a book tour. “Preserving can be simple and fast, it can be really complicated, or anywhere in between.”

Skinner’s first step in to preserving was when she had, as she says in Essential Food Preserving, “an abundant garden and a less-than-abundant bank account”, but she’s keen to emphasise that you don’t have to be a gardener to get started. “There are so many different ways we can go about preserving,” she says. “Even just what people get from the grocery store. If you get, say, a bunch of peppers on sale, or carrots, or herbs, you can repurpose them in all these different ways. It’s a useful set of skills for everybody to have.”