Vinegar is one of those culinary facts of life that existed for thousands of years before being truly understood. (Some probiotics enthusiasts might say that we still don’t truly understand vinegar.) With the ability to sterilize, preserve, and add flavor, vinegar has been made all over the world with as many source ingredients as can be imagined. Of these, the gold standard at the turn of the 20th century was Apple Cider Vinegar, especially in Maryland.
Home-made vinegar was certainly a simple option – there are instructions in Mary Lloyd Tyson’s 1870 “Queen of the Kitchen” for making vinegar with cider, fermented preserves, whiskey, and molasses. “This is an excellent receipt.”
Newspapers of the time offered similar instructions. They also printed many questions and theories on vinegar. “What makes vinegar sharp?” Does more surface area make better vinegar? Are vinegar eels good or bad for the flavor of the vinegar?
Flavor and sharpness aside, these were no trivial matters. With food poisoning so prevalent, the acidity and purity of vinegar could be a matter of life & death.
The Cecil Whig in Elkton reported in 1872 that “probably not one-half of what is sold as cider-vinegar ever had its origin in an apple tree.”