From the foreword:

”Ginette Mathiot was in her early forties when she published Je sais faire les conserves ("I Know How To Make Preserves") in 1948. This was her third opus, after the astounding success of her first two, Je sais cuisiner (first published in 1932 and recently translated by Phaidon as I Know Hore To Cook) and Je sais faire la pâtisserie (published in 1938 and translated as The Art of French Baking).

By then her career as a home economics teacher was well underway and even though she had originally dreamed herself a doctor, a path her stern father brushed off, she had embraced her teaching duties and would go on to climb the ladder of the French educational system to become a general inspector.  

In the meantime, her publishing opportuni ties allowed her to reach a wider audience than jus she put together this wonderful handbook of food preservation, covering every aspect of the craft, from drying herbs to making jam, from canning vegetables to butchering a pig and making your

own charcuterie.

The original edition appeared at a time when food rationing was gradually disappearing (aread was the last food to be released from rationing in 1949) and economy and thrift were still very much at the forefront of every homemaker's mind The housewife's job-Mathiot does not imagine for a second her reader might be male was to make the most of foods while they were cheap and plentiful, and put them up for her family and guests to enjoy during the months of cold and scarcity.

Her recommendations are full of common sense and ingenuity, and she makes allowances for her readers circumstances, whether they live in a small city apartment or in the countryside, with varying storage capacities and acoess to high-quality ingredients to preserve. 

Delving into this volume almost seventy years after it was first published, I hear the echo of my late grandmother's voice she was a contemporary of Mathiot's and raised four sons on a very modest food budget-and I am struck by how relevant it remains today.

Even though year-round fresh produce is more readily available now than it ever has been, and flashy convenience foods vie for our attention in every grocery store aisle, more and more cooks yearn for a simpler relationship to the contents of their plate, one that respects the ebb and flow of the seasons, and rewards foresight and patience.

The purpose of this book, revised and updated to suit the twenty-first-century kitchen, is not to imply that your every meal should be made up of things you either grew or preserved yourself.

It is rather to give you a comprehensive, helpful view of what your options are the day your neighbor drops off a crate of tiny plums from his country house, or the day you score an incredible deal on farmer's market tomatoes at closing time; to provide inspiration and guidance for whatever your vegetable garden yields this year, and if you might like to try your hand at raising a pig of your own sometime.

So whether you're a city dweller wanting to gift ruby jars of strawberry jam to lucky friends, or a country mouse needing to manage your harvest carefully, you can call upon Ginette Mathiot's no-nonsense voice and straightforward advice to guide you on your preserving journey. Months of well-earned treats await.

-Clotilde Dusoulier“