| 1 | 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. |
| 2 | in the 13th century, street vendors were granted the right to cry their wares in the thoroughfares of paris. |
| 3 | These cries soon became famous, and the vinegar sellers even rolled their casks through the narrow streets crying "garlic and mustard vinegars, herb vinegar... |
| 4 | " |
| 5 | "vinaigres, bons et biaux." |
| 6 | 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. |
| 7 | It is still used in some country places and provides a means of using up green grapes unfit for any other purpose. |
| 8 | all farm kitchens have an earthenware vinegar barrel. |
| 9 | It constitutes another of the many country economies. |
| 10 | 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. |
| 11 | The quantity drawn off each day is replaced by emptying the remains of the wine bottles into the barrel. |
| 12 | when herbs are most pungent, just before flowering, they are cut and used to aromatize some of the vinegar drawn off. |
| 13 | It is then bottled and used for flavouring. |
| 14 | 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. |
| 15 | flavoured vinegar: |
| 16 | collect the number of bottles necessary, with sound corks to fit. |
| 17 | Wash the bottles in hot soapy water, rinse first in very hot water then in cold, drain, dry and heat in a slow oven. |
| 18 | Scald the corks in boiling water. |
| 19 | pour the vinegar into an enamel-lined or stainless steel pan and over a low temperature bring slowly to blood heat. |
| 20 | It should be quite warm to the touch of a knuckle joint, no more. |
| 21 | Add shallots, garlic, mustard seed or tarragon to the warm bottles. |
| 22 | (if using tarragon, this should be bent double and pushed down the neck of the bottle). |
| 23 | Fill up with warm vinegar, cork down tightly, and place on a sunny window sill to mature for 6 weeks before use. |
| 24 | from "the french farmhouse kitchen", eileen reece, exeter books, 198Isbn 0-671-06542-4 |
