Pucker Up with Vinegar

     "It makes pickles possible and is essential to a vinaigrette (Vinny Garette!).  It deglazes a hot skillet of crusty bits, paving the way for a pro-level pan sauce.  It's key to the flakiest pie crust ever."  Janet Rausa Fuller goes on to say in a recent article,  "And that's just cooking..."


     Scientists say vinegar keeps hypertension at bay and blood sugar levels in check.  And you can use it to also clean your kitchen.  So rather than think of all those various vinegar bottles in your kitchen pantry as clutter, consider them as your ticket to culinary enlightenment, as well as a fresh smelling sink and a properly functioning coffee maker.



     Vinegar has quite a history.  It is believed that it dates back to 5,000 B.C. when an absent minded Babylonian left a jug of wine open and it's contents fermented and turned into vinegar.  

     And the same is true today with a neglected open bottle of wine.  Anything with natural sugars that you make into alcohol, like wine, fruit, rice or barley, can end up as vinegar.  A type of bacteria called acetobacter does the job in that second fermentation.  It turns alcohol into acetic acid.  Matt Teegarden of the Institute of Food Technologists studied that very thing in his Ph.D research at Ohio State University.  He candidly remarked, "That pungent punch in the face you get from sticking your face in a bottle of vinegar is from acetic acid." 


     Vinegar will last indefinitely, thanks to its high acidity.  Things don't like to live in an acidic environment.  Just keep your vinegars in their glass bottles, caps secure, in a dark, cool cupboard.

Tomorrow: A look at the many variety of vinegars.