How to Dry Foods Book

How to Dry Foods by Deanna DeLong is part cookbook and part explanation of the whys and hows behind drying food. The author has spent over twenty years practicing, writing, and teaching about food dehydration, so she's able to answer all of the questions I've been storing up as I start to consider drying more of our winter stores.

I feel obliged to tell you the few flaws in the book, though:

* There are ads for a single brand of dehydrator scattered throughout. I actually wouldn't have minded seeing her reviews of several different brands, but this felt more like product placement.
* She's a big fan of using sulfur to treat your fruit before dehydrating it and barely touches on alternative methods of pretreating. Some folks recommend Making & Using Dried Foods by Phyllis Hobson as a more well-rounded alternative in that department, although I haven't read it yet.

That said, I'm a big fan of charts that sum up lots of information in a small space, and DeLong's charts are probably worth the entire price of the book. I actually bought an e-copy to have on hand as I experiment with drying this summer, and I tend to only buy a few books per year, so, yes, I recommend it.