Vinegar

Vinegar
The Vinegar making process starts with fermented liquids such as wine, ale, beer, cider, or fermented fruits and grains. The alcohol level must be less than 18%, or the process won't start: if necessary, the liquid is diluted to get the alcohol level down. To this liquid, a starter called "Mother of Vinegar" is added (see separate entry).

Until fairly recently, you didn't even need to add starter. You left wine to stand, and bacteria called Acetobacter aceti that is everywhere in the air would infect your wine and get on with it. Catch is, we insist on wines lasting better so we don't bring crack open musty bottles of the stuff, and so winemakers now treat wines with sulfites and other preservatives to prevent exactly the kind of bacterial growth that you would want to make vinegar. So, you have to use a starter. To make your own starter, you have to get a bottle of unpasteurized wine to start from. Though it does seem a bit odd plonking down $10 for a bottle of wine so you can turn it into a $2 bottle of vinegar.

The sourness of vinegars depends on its having acetic acid in it; how much it has depends on what it is made from. Generally, on a sourness scale from mild to strong:

Rice Wine Vinegar (popular in Japan and China)
Cider Vinegars (popular in North America)
Malt Vinegar (popular in UK and Canada)
Wine vinegars (popular in Europe)
White vinegar

Balsamic vinegar is popular in Italy; Sherry vinegar is popular in Spain.

Cooking Tips
Vinegar added to the water for boiling any vegetable will perk up the colour, especially items such as broccoli, red cabbage, etc. And some say adding it to cooking water reduces the cabbage smell (either that, or you can't tell anymore because your whole place smells like vinegar).

Some even say to add it to the water you boil eggs in to make hard-boiled eggs easier to peel. Others recommend that if you are poaching eggs using the chuck-them-right-in-the-water method, a bit of vinegar added to the water helps to keep them together.

Vinegar can tenderize meat because it breaks down protein fibres. This probably makes sense, given how many marinade recipes call for vinegar, but consider as well putting a bit in the water you are braising meat in. Of course you know scientifically you're really only going to tenderize the very outside of the meat that is in contact with the liquid, but never mind.

To fake a cup of buttermilk for those annoying recipes that pop up calling for it, to 1 cup (8 oz / 250 ml) of milk add 1 tbsp vinegar and let stand a short while.

For some reason, vinegar really helps beans come alive. To perk up bean soups or dishes or even just boiled beans you are going to serve on rice, add a bit of vinegar just in the last 5 minutes of cooking -- just giving it long enough to cook so that your mouth doesn't pucker. This is a definite DO tip; it makes all the difference.

Substitutes
Other vinegars, or lemon or lime juice -- even orange juice depending on what you are making. Some salad dressings in fact call for orange juice instead of vinegar (and very nice dressings they are, but people do seem confused about whether dessert is being served first.)

Tamarind water (for sourness)

Nutrition
A glass of vinegar has never really made anyone's top ten list of nutritious snack foods. But then to be fair, vinegar exists to be a flavour, not to be a food. Depending on what it is made from, it contain trace elements of calcium, iron, magnesium, phosphorus, potassium, copper, and manganese. But then some tap water tastes like it probably does, too.

Storage
Unopened vinegar will keep for about two years in a cool, dark place. Once opened, the clock does begin ticking and you have about 6 months. If you want it to last longer, trying storing in the refrigerator -- try this especially for those specialty vinegars that you used once or twice but can't quite bring yourself to admit wasn't quite as nice as plain old vinegar. This gives you longer to "own" them before you throw them out, and so you can feel as though you are getting more of your money's worth.

History
The Sumerians used vinegar. You could buy flavoured vinegars in Babylonian markets. The Romans loved vinegar. At many meals you would even have a bowl of fruit vinegar to dunk your bread in. Roman soldiers carried vinegar (posea - a sour wine) with them; they would dilute it with water, toss in a few mint leaves plucked from the side of the path, and consider it a refreshing drink. We've traditionally thought of vinegar being offered to Jesus on the cross as a sour insult (Matt. 27:34), but scholars are now pointing out that, given how refreshing Romans thought vinegar was, it was probably actually an act of compassion.

Literature & Lore
"Here's the challenge, read it: warrant there's vinegar and pepper in't. " Sir Andrew, Twelfth Night, III, 4

"Vinegar possesses great merits for its many uses, without which life would lose its pleasantness". Pliny the Elder, Roman naturalist, 70 A.D.

"Piss and vinegar" is an expression meaning full of energy, boisterous.

Titus Livius (BC 59 to AD 17), a Roman historian, wrote that Hannibal used vinegar to split rocks as he was crossing the Alps. That must have been some pretty strong vinegar. "The next thing was to level the rock through which alone a road was practicable. The soldiers were told to cut through it. They built up against it an enormous pile of tall trees which they had felled and lopped, and when the wind was strong enough to blow up the fire they set light to the pile. When the rock was red hot they poured vinegar upon it to disintegrate it. After thus treating it by fire they opened a way through it with their tools, and eased the steep slope by winding tracks of moderate gradient, so that not only the baggage animals but even the elephants could be led down." -- Livy, History of Rome 21:37.

Language Notes
The native French (or Franks, as they were at the time) tasted the refreshing drink of the Romans, and pronounced it "yin aigre", sour wine, probably after spitting it out. In modern French, the "yin aigre" would be "vin aigre", from which comes vinaigre, and our English word, vinegar.

Also called: Vinaigre (French) Essig (German) Aceto (Italian) Vinagre (Spanish) Acetum (Roman)