Drying vegetables, Herbs and Fruit

Drying is perhaps, together with freezing, the most natural of all ways to preserve food. The early inhabitants of this country probably ate wild fruit and vegetables where they were picked, but as soon as people started carrying home the gathered produce, the problem arose of preserving some of it. It might have been left outside the cave on a rock in the sun, or hung up inside, out of the way but near the cooking fire. The methods we use today are not far different. The ancient methods, discovered perhaps by chance, rely on slow removal of all moisture. Even a slight hastening of the process leaves us with a wizened product which the most prolonged soaking and careful cooking cannot restore to its former luscious splendour.