From the Introduction I’m somehow embarrassed to admit that I have a passion (not sure if that’s due to my British heritage or being a teenage punk), but I’m going to be brave here and confess that I have three in fact. The first is cooking, under which fall preserving and baking. The second is teaching—something that I never thought I’d do but has become one of my favorite occupations. The third is reading and writing—the former I could do ceaselessly and the latter I have a more complicated relationship with, but both feed off one another and are nearly as important to me as food. Oh and wait, maybe a fourth: I could not live without fruit. It brings me boundless joy and inspires awe season to season. Fruit is primarily what this book is about—you won’t find a recipe without it.
When I told someone I was writing this book, they said, “How niche.” But to me, it makes perfect sense. I’ve been asked countless times, “What can I do with jam besides put it on toast?” It’s a good question! But when you think about it, jam is literally at the heart of so many pastry classics—Linzertorte, rugelach, Pop-Tarts . . . the list goes on. What a pleasure, after all, in the depths of winter, to taste white peaches or sweet summer cherries. This is the delight that preserving affords us, and it goes hand in hand with baking. My career is proof of that.
I moved to Montreal thinking I would become a scholar, but eventually had to admit that nothing consumed my attention in the same way that baking did. Daydreaming in Latin and Russian Lit about cakes I might make, filling up notebooks with ideas. I eventually decided to apply to pastry school.
Fast-forward to when I was required to intern at a pastry shop or restaurant. In spite of being warned against it (I was told “vegetable-forward restaurants are just a fad,” which seems hilarious now), I went to work at a beautiful restaurant called Les Chèvres with Patrice Demers, a pastry chef who was just a year or two older than me but already extremely accomplished (and who would only become more so). I would go on to work there on and off in their sun-filled pastry kitchen. It’s where I first made marmalade . . .
. . . In 2011, I launched Preservation Society, which sounded much bigger than it was, since in the beginning it was me alone. I made jams, jellies, marmalades, chutneys, pickles, and fruits in syrup in unique flavor combinations using as much local produce as possible. I had no idea how to run a business, but I learned as I went, producing preserves with a cult following, hiring employees, and running workshops. Then the person I love decided to pursue a career that required us to move, and I learned how little fun it is to move a business. But fortunately I also remembered how much I missed pastry, and so I returned to my original calling. While I stopped selling preserves, though, I didn’t stop making them or teaching others how.
I never set out to become a preserving teacher, but once I began I had total satisfaction sharing something I love with inquisitive students. As a self-taught preserver I had read every book on the subject I could get my hands on, but I found much of the information to be contradictory and that few of the reasons for why we followed the procedures we did were explained. This led me to Liberty, NY, for a Master Preservers course. I had a great time, but we were literally made to chant, “Canning is not creative cooking.” As I was writing my first preserving cookbook at the time, this saddened me. I know the USDA guidelines for home-canning are made to reduce to the absolute minimum the risk of foodborne illness and contamination, but it seemed to me that folks could be given a little credit and allowed to make safe substitutions and additions to recipes.
To dive deeper into the science, I took two-week long classes on artisanal preserving at the Institute of Agriculture and Technology in Quebec, where I learned from experts more than I’ll ever need to know—but most importantly I learned the streamlined method I still use for jarring jams, jellies, and marmalades. Now when I teach classes, my philosophy is that if you know why you follow the prescribed procedures, you won’t make any terrible mistakes. So we start by talking about microbiology, just as we do in this book.
Once you really understand what you’re doing, you can start getting creative. To me, creativity is one of the main delights of being alive, so I hope I’ve set you up here to make jam and bake with jam in a way that expresses something about you or your favorite fruits. Or you can just follow the preserving and baking recipes. I did, after all, write them for you. —CW
Copyright © 2021 by Camilla Wynne. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
