Flavoured Vinegars

INGREDIENTS

INSTRUCTIONS

Flavoured wine vinegar has been an important ingredient in French
cooking since medieval times when vinegar was essential in order to
keep meat edible in warm weather.  In the 13th century, street vendors
were granted the right to cry  their wares in the thoroughfares of
Paris.  These cries soon became  famous, and the vinegar sellers even
rolled their casks through the  narrow streets crying 'Garlic and
mustard vinegars, herb vinegar...  '  'Vinaigres, bons et biaux.'  They
also sold verjus, the sieved juice of unripe grapes which serves  to
sharpen the flavour of many cooked dishes in the same way that  vinegar
does.  It is still used in some country places and provides a  means of
using up green grapes unfit for any other purpose.  All farm kitchens
have an earthenware vinegar barrel.  It constitutes  another of the
many country economies.  After the grape harvest, a  certain quantity
of either red or white wine is reserved and poured  into the barrel
over a liquid fungus or mere de vinaigre which turns  it into vinegar.
The quantity drawn off each day is replaced by  emptying the remains of
the wine bottles into the barrel.  When herbs are most pungent, just
before flowering, they are cut and  used to aromatize some of the
vinegar drawn off.  It is then bottled  and used for flavouring.
Owning a vinegar barrel is a privilege of which few English kitchens
can boast but plain wine vinegar sold in the multiple chemists' shops
can be used effectively with home-grown herbs to produce fine vinegar
at much less cost than that prepared commercially.  FLAVOURED VINEGAR:
Collect the number of bottles necessary, with sound corks to fit.  Wash
the bottles in hot soapy water, rinse first in very hot water  then in
cold, drain, dry and heat in a slow oven.  Scald the corks in  boiling
water.  Pour the vinegar into an enamel-lined or stainless steel pan
and over  a low temperature bring slowly to blood heat.  It should be
quite  warm to the touch of a knuckle joint, no more.  Add shallots,
garlic,  mustard seed or tarragon to the warm bottles.  (If using
tarragon,  this should be bent double and pushed down the neck of the
bottle.)  Fill up with warm vinegar, cork down tightly, and place on a
sunny  window sill to mature for 6 weeks before use.  From "The French
Farmhouse Kitchen", Eileen Reece, Exeter Books,  Posted by Stephen
Ceideberg; May 13 1993.  File
ftp://ftp.idiscover.co.uk/pub/food/mealmaster/recipes/cberg2.zip

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