THERE is a ring of, shall we say, maturity about the idea of making jars full of plump and fruity chutneys, relishes and preserves. Not a task you'd consider, necessarily, the morning after you'd been to a rave, for example, even if it is all about curing.
But that most prolific publisher, Dorling Kindersley, has managed to make even the art of preserving things look sexy and most desirous in their latest design-led book, Preserving, by Oded Schwartz, a lavishly-illustrated how-to manual within a collection of recipes. The time-honoured classics - such as pickled cucumbers - are all there as well as more contemporary adaptations, like smoky red pepper ketchup.
In the past people made the most of a seasonal glut of vegetables by preserving them in a variety of ingenious ways. So there are chapters devoted singly to making the most of orchard fruit, citric fruit, exotic and soft fruit; tomatoes, peppers, onions, the squash family and root vegetables, as well as meat and fish (curing, potting and smoking).
And let's be honest, pickles and relishes were also designed to jazz up the bland. Is there any point, for example, in eating a frankfurter without mustard? Would McDonald's have sold those billions of burgers without dill pickles? Could you cheerfully dispense leftovers or curries without ajar of good chutney to hand? Is it not recklessly continental to eat cherries soaked in brandy one by one?
This is clearly the best time of the year to get down to it, to make the most of summer's abundance of both fruit and vegetables. For the well organised it is also the best time to set about making edible presents for Christmas - cheap, cheerful and undeniably, em, unique.
Candying can be a long, slow process, Mr Schwartz writes, but the end product seems well worth the trouble: candied pineapple rings glistening in a box decorated with crystallised flowers look incredibly exotic. Black cherry confiture has to be one of the great European classics. Baby artichokes in oil flavoured with thyme and lemons - yum.
Pickled fish, on the other hand looks remarkably like those jars you see in biology labs. Not for me.
During late summer and autumn he tells us our kitchens should exude the delicious aromas of luscious fruit, spices and drying herbs. Maybe this year?