One evening, just as I was completing the manuscript of this book, my mother telephoned. “Be sure,” she said, “to tell your readers that food drying is really nothing new. People have been drying peas, beans, and grains for centuries. And don’t forget to remind them that we routinely buy dried foods like noodles, and tea, and soups at the grocery.”
My mother is right, of course. Drying food at home is not new—it is just new to the generations of people who have grown up since the food-processing industry became so large and efficient. We may be sophisticated and knowledgeable about electronic scanning and bar codes and high-tech appliances, and we may even be aware of the importance of good food for good health, but we’ve forgotten, if we ever even knew, what our ancestors knew about drying food. That means until recently we had forgotten how wonderful a home-prepared sun-dried tomato or piece of beef jerky or candied apricot can taste. There are whole new—or should I say old?—worlds to explore when it comes to food drying. This book will be your guide.
When I first became really aware of food drying, more than twenty years ago, I was overjoyed. It would solve the problem of surplus vegetables and fruits from my garden. It would be a welcome alternative to the tediousness, at least for me, of canning and the worry of it, too. And it would be less expensive than preserving foods by freezing them. For all those reasons, food drying satisfied my interest in good nutrition for good health.
Over the years I grew to know the benefits and possibilities of food dehydration from many points of view. As a mother and homemaker, I liked being able to provide my family and friends with nutritious, healthful foods, including desserts and even snacks. As a gardener, I was able to put up my organically grown harvest in a fraction of the time it took my friends who canned or froze their bounty. As an outdoor enthusiast, I really appreciated the value of lightweight dried foods that were high in energy—and many of them high in protein, too—and that were much less expensive to make than to buy from outfitters. Using my own home-dried foods meant that I could avoid the many chemical additives and residues commonly found in processed food. And, last but not least, I felt I was doing my part for world hunger and sponsoring an environmental ethic in trying to live the adage: Waste not, want not.
My evolution as a dried-food advocate started simply. At first, I tried to dry food in the oven, which sometimes worked and sometimes did not. The food generally turned dark in color, something I could not control. So I tried something else: the old-fashioned method of sun-drying food. My first outdoor solar food-dehydrating contraption—and that may be an understatement!—consisted of two window screens tied together with a piece of rope. I placed the pieces of food in it and hung the screens from the branch of a tree to dry in the sun. Little did I realize then that the humidity in Wisconsin, where I live, on any given day in summer hovers somewhere around 90 percent plus! Needless to say, my vegetables did not dry: They grew a magnificent coat of mold! My attempt led me to an important discovery, though—hot, dry circulating air, as opposed to wet still air, would dry food. Granted, I had not successfully dried any food outdoors, but I had succeeded in grasping a basic principle of food dehydration.
After I had made a few more tries at drying herbs and vegetables outdoors, a friend, who had observed my interest in this process, gave me an electric food dehydrator that had been made in Switzerland. It was a very simple machine: a metal bowl with a popcorn popper-style heating element in the bottom; on top of it you stacked trays made of wire mesh screened material. From the moment I put that dehydrator on my kitchen counter, I could not stay away from it. Everything I dried in it became more and more fascinating. I realize that not everyone is turned on by beautiful dried tomatoes, which you can eat as chips, but to me it was really thrilling. Buoyed by the friendship of a struggling yet adventurous graphic artist, who actually liked to eat the dried tomatoes I was drying, I realized I was hooked!
Several months after being given my first electric dehydrator, I went on a ten-day canoe trip in the splendid Boundary Waters between the United States and Canada. Half of the food I carried was commercially dried; the other half I had dried myself. The food that I had prepared tasted more like what it was and more wholesome than the food I had bought at the outfitters store.
In those days there was very little information available about how to dry and use dried foods, so when I got back home I wrote down how I had prepared what I had taken with me. This led to my first book, Dehydration Made Simple. The success of that book gave me the courage and conviction to prepare a second edition, which was published in 1981. This book evolved as a consequence of what I had learned from many conversations with food scientists and researchers and food-drying enthusiasts. Since 1981 I have made a lot of new discoveries.
I have come to the realization that there is a connection between food drying, the wasting of food, and world hunger. In 1981, I traveled as a volunteer to Central America with the Wisconsin/Nicaragua Partners of the Americas and taught classes on appropriate food technology, which in this context meant food drying. My experience in Nicaragua was fascinating, and I believe I learned more than I taught. I will never forget the man who stood up one day in the back of a classroom in the jungle village of Pearl Lagoon and said, “Mary Bell, thank you for coming all this way. I never knew I could dry my tomatoes and onions. I thought all I could dry was corn and shrimp.”
I suddenly understood that what I was sharing with my classes was much more important than information: It was permission, permission for others to try something new. “Yes, not only can you dry your tomatoes and onions, but you can dry bananas and mangoes, too!”
I returned to the United States from Nicaragua knowing two things: that I wanted to do more to promote home food drying and that I would start with my own culture first. I began traveling around the country, promoting the concept and selling food dehydrators at state fairs and home shows. I learned how to load and unload portable display booths; endure long-distance drives and then set up displays, hook up lights and microphones. I packed more dehydrators into small places than you could believe possible and talked for hours on end about how they work and what they produce. Believing in the importance of dried food was what kept me going. It still does.
Over the years, I have been asked many questions by people interested in food drying and I have done my best to answer them. Along the way I have learned new, improved ways of drying foods from folks as curious about the challenge as I am. All these discoveries have led me to write this book.
I am convinced that drying food is a great way for people to get back in touch with the earth and connect with their own food supply. In Thomas Moore’s book, Care of the Soul, he speaks of embracing the ordinary. Drying food is one form of embracing the ordinary.
Writing a book like this one is somewhat like building a house. You have to make decisions about every little thing—and every big one, too. When a house is finished, you must live within its walls. You can remodel, change the decor, or make adjustments. I hope that this book and my experiences, or at least some of them, will compel you to look at food in a new way, to experiment with drying it, and to make both the practical and philosophical aspects of food drying, an ancient tradition worldwide, a way of life for you. As a simple food dehydrator changed my life one day in 1971, I hope the ideas in this book will affect yours.
I believe that you only need to learn 14 key techniques to master the art of food dehydration. I have placed these techniques throughout the book, each one in an appropriate chapter, so that you can learn them in context.
For quick reference, all the techniques are listed in the Index.