Can the worry and learn best way to preserve

By late May, sales at the Jarden company, producer of both Ball and Kerr canning products, were almost 50 percent higher than last year, concrete proof that people are returning to canning in large numbers. Long performed as a household economy, the practice of "putting up" garden surplus or market produce bought in season, when most abundant and best priced, has grown as the recession has lingered.

For the novice, or those in need of a refresher course in food safety, the go-to place is the U.S. Department of Agriculture's canning Web site, the National Center for Home Food Preservation, www.uga.edu/nchfp/.

Once grounded in proper canning procedure here, however, the next step is to study techniques for improving commercial recipes. Three new cookbooks have conveniently arrived to start there and take you as far in the art of preserving as you'd care to go: from beans to bacon.

"Well Preserved: Recipes and Techniques for Putting Up Small Batches of Seasonal Foods." Daughter of Italian-American cookbook author Edward Giobbi, Eugenia Bone cut her teeth on canning while watching her father pursuing this craft. "Coming from an Italian household," she writes, "home preserving was always a part of the ebb and flow of the seasons." Now pursuing putting up in her own home, Bone shares theknowledge in this book and through her blog, http://blogs.denverpost.com/preserved/.

The book begins with 30 pages on procedure, divided into water bath canning, pickling, pressure canning, freezing, preserving in oil and curing and smoking. The chapters are divided as fruits; vegetables; beans, nuts and fungi; and meat, poultry and fish. In each, preserving methods are employed that are applicable to the product presented. Brandied figs and strawberry balsamic jam are canned by water bath, for example; tuna by pressure.

Bone also supplies recipes for putting each product to use, though I would have liked less of these and more of her recipes for preserving, as they are infinitely more flavorful than the typical Ball-jar recipe. Paperback. Clarkson Potter $24.95.

"Preserved." British authors Nick Sandler and Johnny Acton hit the nail on the head when they wrote that "superior preserved foods are much cheaper to make than to buy." They give us delicious chapters on putting up, with recipes ranging from pumpkin and maple spread and fig jam to grilled green tomato chutney and roasted corn relish. But they also include herbs, pastes, and infused oils and vinegars. Here we discover the method for making our own Thai red and green curry pastes, harissa paste and adobo.

Further savings can be gleaned by applying the principles of the drying chapter, which includes chiles, tomatoes and every imaginable fruit. Think of the cost of dried blueberries and cranberries vis-a-vis fresh ones in season and you will quickly realize the economic benefit of drying your own. For the very motivated, there are also instructions and recipes for smoking and sausage-making, incorporating the instructions for building simple hot and cold smokers. Paperback. Kyle Books. $22.95.

"Jam It, Pickle It, Cure It, and Other Cooking Projects." Author Karen Solomon, revolting from reliance on a store-bought stocked pantry, tackled one category after another until she conquered both larder and fridge. Crackers, chips, dips and condiments from ketchup to salad dressings make the book, as do all manner of pickles, pasta, and preserved meats and fish. Cheeses, candies and cordials, too, plus something many of us used to make but have mostly forgotten — ice pops — this time using real fruit. Hardcover. Ten Speed Press. $24.95.

Marion Sullivan is culinary programs specialist at the Culinary Institute of Charleston. Send your cookbook questions to Booksforcooks@bellsouth.net.