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Vinegar's role in 18th-19th cooking

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For centuries the British used malt vinegar on their fish, in case the fish were not quite fresh. It was supposed to help digestion and help prevent illness. This was according to my Irish grandmother, born 1884, but she also claimed to have seen a leprechaun.
 
For centuries the British used malt vinegar on their fish, in case the fish were not quite fresh. It was supposed to help digestion and help prevent illness. This was according to my Irish grandmother, born 1884, but she also claimed to have seen a leprechaun.
I think the vinegar is to cut the oiliness of the fried fish and potatoes.
 
I can give you some fish recipes using vinegar. from 1861
The Book of Household Management By Mrs. Isabella Beeton.

BOILED FLOUNDERS.
INGREDIENTS.—Sufficient water to cover the flounders, salt in the proportion of 6 oz. to each gallon, a little vinegar. Mode.—Pat on a kettle with enough water to cover the flounders, lay in the fish, add salt and vinegar in the above proportions, and when it boils, simmer very gently for 5 minutes. They must not boil fast, or they will break. Serve with plain melted butter, or parsley and butter. Time.—After the water boils, 5 minutes. Seasonable from August to November.

BAKED WHITE HERRINGS.
INGREDIENTS.—12 herrings, 4 bay-leaves, 12 cloves, 12 allspice, 2 small blades of mace, cayenne pepper and salt to taste, sufficient vinegar to fill up the dish. Mode.—Take the herrings, cut off the heads, and gut them. Put them in a pie-dish, heads and tails alternately, and, between each layer, sprinkle over the above ingredients. Cover the fish with the vinegar, and bake for 1/2 hour, but do not use it till quite cold. The herrings may be cut down the front, the backbone taken out, and closed again. Sprats done in this way are very delicious.

COLLARED SALMON.
INGREDIENTS.—A piece of salmon, say 3 lbs., a high seasoning of salt, pounded mace, and pepper; water and vinegar, 3 bay-leaves. Mode.—Split the fish; scale, bone, and wash it thoroughly clean; wipe it, and rub in the seasoning inside and out; roll it up, and bind firmly; lay it in a kettle, cover it with vinegar and water (1/3 vinegar, in proportion to the water); add the bay-leaves and a good seasoning of salt and whole pepper, and simmer till done. Do not remove the lid. Serve with melted butter or anchovy sauce. For preserving the collared fish, boil up the liquor in which it was cooked, and add a little more vinegar. Pour over when cold. Time.—3/4 hour, or rather more.
 
Here's a beef recipe with vinegar.

ROLLED BEEF, to eat like Hare.
INGREDIENTS.—About 5 lbs. of the inside of the sirloin, 2 glasses of port wine, 2 glasses of vinegar, a small quantity of forcemeat (No. 417), 1 teaspoonful of pounded allspice. Mode.—Take the inside of a large sirloin, soak it in 1 glass of port wine and 1 glass of vinegar, mixed, and let it remain for 2 days. Make a forcemeat by recipe No. 417, lay it on the meat, and bind it up securely. Roast it before a nice clear fire, and baste it with 1 glass each of port wine and vinegar, with which mix a teaspoonful of pounded allspice. Serve, with a good gravy in the dish, and send red-currant jelly to table with it.
 
Posca is a water/vinegar drink that was used as an energizer, used by the Romans. It also can neutralize bacteria.
I use Natural Org ACV in my smoothy every morning, it helps with digestion. The Heinze "Natural" is not a natural live version etc..
 
Just for fun I searched for books on Amazon about using vinegar. There are a lot of them, thousands of pages. Youtube has a bunch of videos on the subject on uses of vinegar for health, in history, cooking, household matters, gardening, etc. Same with any computer search under vinegar. I knew the stuff in its various forms was versatile but not to this extent.

Jeff
 
Trying to stay within the 18th and 19th centuries. I just remembered and interesting recipe, now I have to go find it.
 
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At 2 quarts per hundred rations, I'd say it was definitely a condiment.
 
Vinegar was an accident found centuries ago. Wine was made with the yeast on grapes but a wild yeast would get in and eat the alcohol turning wine to vinegar. Today you can buy the yeast.
 
Vinegar was an accident found centuries ago. Wine was made with the yeast on grapes but a wild yeast would get in and eat the alcohol turning wine to vinegar. Today you can buy the yeast.
The fermentation process to make alcohol requires an air lock. Without an airlock, your result is vinegar.
Walk
 
Vinegar was an accident found centuries ago. Wine was made with the yeast on grapes but a wild yeast would get in and eat the alcohol turning wine to vinegar. Today you can buy the yeast.
Actually, it's a bacteria that makes vinegar.
Yeasts convert sugars into ethanol and co2, then Acetobacter bacteria come along and eat the ethanol producing acetic acid.
Yeasts do their work in an anerobic environment, Acetobacter to their work in an oxygen environment.
 
Yeasts do their work in an anerobic environment, Acetobacter to their work in an oxygen environment.
I think ya have that reversed....well at least yeast needs oxygen, not sure about the acetobacter bugs...

One of the primary ways that fermentation can be stalled or "stuck" is by the lack of oxygen in the beer or ale wort. One of the hazards of bottling or kegging without using a hyrdrometer is the home brewer thinks his ale is done fermenting, adds a small amount of sugar and then bottles the brew. THEN because of the addition of the oxygen to the ale or beer during bottling, the yeast picks back up, but instead of a controlled amount of sugar that was added giving a specific amount of trapped CO2 for carbonation, there is extra, unexpected sugar still in the ale/beer which then over carbonates..., and in some instances, bursts the bottle or the keg. Hence the term "flying barrel". :confused:

LD
 
Saw another reference that said it was to prevent scurvy, but wasn't always available. Question answered up the page. Thanks.
There was an episode of "Gunsmoke" Where Doc was searching for vinegar because a family had scurvy.
 
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