By "Heirloom," this book encompasses heirloom preservation techniques, too. The fermentation section was interesting, but someone entirely new to the subject might want an additional book to round out their knowledge.

An absolutely stunning, incredibly helpful book that teaches all that you need to know for making fresh, healthy foods. Covers everything from pickling to fermenting to yogurt making to culturing butter and rendering fat and oodles of wonderful recipes. Beautiful color photos are used throughout. Highly recommended.

Magnificent.!
It is one of those books that you will read over and over again. So much to learn. And so much passion it's been put into this book. All the magic of food preservation, back to basics and the good life.

This book has been written from the soul. Alot of research has been done to complete the feel that this book gives. I love that this book has so much meaning behind it and love the idea of keeping things just the way they are and going back to the roots of why and how. Just beautiful.

Sarah Owens is a horticulturalist and baker best known for her beautiful breads. Her cookbook, Heirloom, is organized into two parts with Part One showcasing preservation techniques, such as pickling and fermenting, and Part Two focusing on recipes and stories. Her standout recipes are her breads, and I really enjoyed her section on making sourdough bread. Fans of Owens' other books, Toast and Jam, and Sourdough, may enjoy catching a cooking class inspired by her lovely new work. While the recipes are not difficult, I think the techniques are better suited for someone who has an intermediate level of cooking.

This book was beautiful, but not completely for me. The title made me think it would be more about utilizing one's garden for fresh, healthy recipes (which is definitely a part of it), but I was turned off by such a huge focus on fermentation and preservation. The title, HEIRLOOM, made me think of Heirloom tomatoes, so that's what I was expecting the main focus to be.

If you are person who loves canning, growing, and all things natural, this is DEFINITELY a MUST READ. The photos are gorgeous and enticing. The detail Owens goes into to describe various techniques for preservation of homegrown food is very in-depth. It is educational and aesthetically pleasing. Even though this book wasn't particularly up my alley, I would still be happy to keep it on my coffee table or in my kitchen as inspiration and motivation towards a natural, healthier way of consuming what we grow.

Interesting book for the cook who is interested in fermentation. The photography was beautiful - I enjoyed flipping through this book. A great gift idea for those who love to be innovative in the kitchen.

Thank you, NetGalley and Roost Books for this digital ARC.

Both a cookbook and an ode to small-batch, heritage preserving and cooking. Filled with beautiful pictures and aspirational but accessible recipes. Will appeal to home chefs who enjoy tending an herb garden and visiting the farmers' market on Saturday mornings.

This is a deeply personal and richly informative cookbook that encompasses a wide variety of fermentation and preserving techniques, as well as myriad heirloom grains, fruits, and vegetables.

The cookbook is essentially divided into three sections: basic techniques, seasonal recipes, appendices. The basic techniques section is further subdivided into fruits and vegetables; animal products; and grains. Making a basic table loaf, creating a sourdough starter, making vinegar, pickling vegetables, rendering lard, and making jams and jellies are just some of the techniques covered by this section. Additionally this section has “mother” recipes that are relied on by and/or referred to in the seasonal recipes section. The seasonal recipes are initially grouped by season of the year, and then further subdivided by type - breads and grains; savory; sweets and beverages. Each recipe was quite well-written. The introductions to the recipes discussed the uniqueness of the ingredients, offered some tips to its preparation, and/or provided insight into the recipes’ origins. The ingredients list was written in both metric weights and appropriate imperial measurements and was presented in order of use. The recipe instructions were written in paragraph form; the longer recipes had subtitles for the main steps. Sporadically in between the recipes were short essays about the unique ingredients used, such as ground cherries, amaranth, nightshades, and einkorn.

Without having any exposure to the author’s two previous cookbooks - Sourdough and Toast and Jam - it feels like some of the material may be cut and paste from those books. Especially certain bread recipes (which feel inconsistent with the rest of the book) and the glossary (which is comprised of exclusively bread-related terms). It felt like a good portion of the recipes used unobtainable ingredients, even though the Resources section of the appendices listed three or four pages of sources.

Almost every recipe was illustrated with beautiful full-page full-color photography. The majority of the photography was of the various ingredients or of the finished product, rather than of the process(es) used in the recipe. Overall, the photographs were useful in both identifying unusual ingredients and in understanding the look and feel of the finished result.

I received this book as a digital advance reader copy from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. I have yet to prepare any of the recipes from this book, although I have marked several of the jams and liqueurs to try in the near future. When I do prepare recipes from this book, I will update this review with the results.

I was expecting a collection of recipes for those of us who grow heirloom veggies. This book seems to cater to a very targeted crowd that is into fermentation and the like. This book wasn't really for me.

Stunning photos make you want to go to the place, touch the thing, lick the spoon.
Heirloom considers not only the food but also the practices that we can - and must? - bring into our modern cooking and eating. Ways of saving what we grow, using seasonal gluts appropriately, treating food & the time, resources & energy that went into growing it, with respect. All of this I agree with, but didn't find much to help me practically live this. This is fussier & more obscure than the way I like to shop and eat.
I was already interested in fermentation before reading this and, like the author, found that being mindful of what I ate had a positive, recuperative affect on my digestion and health. I was a little under-whelmed by this portion of the book, though - there were some recipes for making pickles or fermented vegetables, but not much advice on how to eat them, or advice on how to preserve the cultures when cooking.
A gorgeous book that will find an audience who appreciates the recipes more than I did. For me, one for the eyes not the belly.

Great job of bringing modern flavor combos to their historical origins. The book uses a lot of specialty grains rather than kitchen staples. The recipes simplify artisan food to the point where the most challenging part will be procuring the ingredients. Luckily there is a resource section in the back.

I think the most interesting ideas for me are learning different fermentation methods, and the benefits of fermented food. There are enough unique recipes to keep you busy all year and they are conveniently sectioned off by season to capitalize on the fresh and stored alike.

This cookbook is stunningly gorgeous: one you'll want to cook from as well as keep on your coffee table or kitchen table to flip through. Even on the Kindle the pictures are vibrant and alluring. Sarah Owens' writing style is inviting and warm, calling the reader in to a place where 'heirloom' is another word for 'home'. I would not be surprised to see this book competing for and winning many awards this year, as it is a cut above most other cookbooks from cover to cover: from the images to the breadth of recipes to the layout of the recipes themselves.

Owens writes for a moderately competent cook: while she does not define every single cooking move or tool, she includes plant profiles and does contextualize ingredients, such as taro, with which she assumes home cooks might not be familiar.

Heirloom begins with chapters on 1/preservation and 2/heirloom grains and flours, including methods and recipes for both. The book is then organized by season; some ingredients may not be available where the reader lives and for those she usually includes substitutes in the headnote. Several recipes do reference one another, though even when one must make two recipes to create a meal, much of the 'cooking' time is passive (for example, waiting for bread to rise). Ingredients are listed in both metric and imperial measurements, which means both my sister-in-law (a professional baker) and I (an at-home baker) can comfortably read and carry out the instructions, which are clearly written and easy to follow.

Every aspect of this cookbook is carefully considered. One that I especially loved is that image captions are tips for the ingredient or recipe, and might read (this is not from the book): Tomatoes pair well with a variety of vinegars--in winter use an intensely flavored 4% acidity balsamic; in summer use the lighter white balsamic.

Recipes I'm excited to try include Beluga Lentil Curry & it's component Ginger Peanut Garlic Paste, Sweet Potato Peanut Hummus, and Green Tomato and Eggplant Shakshuka.

I was provided an ARC of this book from NetGalley for my honest opinion.

HEIRLOOM is a gorgeous, thoughtful journey into a style of cooking that asks the cook to channel intuition and a purpose that goes beyond satisfying hunger. Owens's writing introduces us to an heirloom lifestyle - not just ingredients or seeds or recipes, but a way of living. Though the recipes are well-written, this book is not for the beginner cook; rather, this cookbook is a meditation on transformation in the kitchen and on the plate.

A gorgeous book, but I'm left wondering if I would even be able to attempt most of the recipes included. Even with short ingredient lists, many of the ingredients seem like they would be hard to find. Reminds me a lot of 'Plenty', which I love paging through for inspiration but I've rarely found myself actually making the effort to cook the recipes.

I loved this combination of traditional and modern takes on ingredients. I can’t wait to try out some of the recipes in this book. In addition to the recipes I really learned a lot from the other parts of the book.

Heirloom by Sarah Owens is a welcome and unique way of preserving taste by using heirloom plants and heirloom methods. The book looks at the preparation of food through cooking slowly and using heirloom ingredients. Ms Owens uses traditional ingredients like vegetables, meats, grains and dairy. The recipes use fermentation, soaking and extended cooking. The reasoning behind the return to the heirloom is a return to health and a more nourishing way to look at food.
The book is lengthy and massively informative. The first part of the book is preserving traditions which includes salts, vinegars, jams and jellies, broths, and dehydration. The next part of this chapter is the recipes that are based upon the preserving mentioned previously. The second half of the book is divided into the four seasons and what items are bountiful in each.
This is an extremely and insightful book. Well worth the read if you wish to restore or maintain your health as well as learning about the heirloom way to prepare food.

This is a beautiful book with lovely photographs. I like very much that the author mentions her Appalachian upbringing and attempts to incorporates a few of those traditions to this book. This book is also full of history. I've learned the background and history of different elements of food she has included here.

While so many elements of the book are fascinating, and exoitic, I found this book to not provide practical everyday use. And while she is attempting to make very healthy food many of these recipes contained far too much refined sugar..

This book was absolutely gorgeous, full of drool-inducing food photos and lovely food descriptions. However, it was WAY over my head in terms of many of the recipes (for example, complicated sourdough starters that you need an entirely different book by Owens to make), and I question the "locavore" label on some of them (pomegranates and kumquats are delicious but are definitely NOT local here in Colorado, and likely not in Brooklyn either). I was also hoping for more details on "heirloom" preservation techniques. In the end, this is definitely more of an "ideas" book than a "use" book for me, and likely for you too, unless you're a serious foodie or chef.

Sarah Owens' efforts to introduce cooks to using locally grown, "heirloom" food is commendable, and she writes eloquently and passionately about the benefits of doing so. A lengthy introduction leaves the reader fully informed as to why Owens prefers this kind of food and cookery, despite the often overblown descriptions and statements describing the relationship between humans and food consumption.

The recipes here are organized in two parts - by type such as fruits & vegetables, meats, and grains, then by season, which is helpful and supports the narrative style of the text.

There's some definite "Earth Mothering" here, with recipes and instructions for making your own vinegar from carefully selected plants, and fermenting food which, let's be real, normal people are probably not going to work into their busy lives. And that leads me to my main criticism of this book - it is definitely written from a place of privilege. There's little to no understanding by the author that many Americans live in food deserts, where they can't easily access fresh food, and certainly can't afford to pay for some of the ingredients used here. That said, this will find an audience with the semi-affluent to affluent Moms who are trying to get their families to eat healthy.