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.”
Decades later, the problem persisted. A “pure vinegar law” was put before Maryland legislature in 1902. The Baltimore Health Department analyzed samples of vinegar sold in city grocery stores. “Out of 70 samples… but one sample proved to be cider vinegar. Of the remainder, 7 samples were malt vinegar, 38 distilled whisky vinegar, colorless, and 24 samples were colored whisky vinegar,” reported the Sun.
In 1981, Heloise stoked nostalgia by sharing a vinegar candy recipe
Apparently, Big Vinegar won out – the law was defeated by three votes. Apple farmers and true cider vinegar manufacturers found it hard to compete with the cheap imitations.
A “pure vinegar law” was rendered unnecessary by the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906, and the vinegar litigations began until, presumably, the impostors were rooted out.
It’s actually taken me most of my life to cultivate an appreciation for vinegar. I am pretty sure I have a gene that makes it hard to get past the smell. I most associate it with Thrasher’s fries and feel repulsed as I type this.
There’s more to vinegar than Heinz malt. Once I acclimated myself to the fruity flavors of balsamic vinegar I was primed to enjoy a nice rice wine vinegar, Bragg’s apple cider vinegar… before long I was making my own. In 2015 I read about someone making vinegar from soda pops. There’s a whole world out there.
I like Keepwell because of their commitment to the process. That sounds corny but its true – it’s not just flavored vinegar. You can make your own easily enough. Their vinegars are true fermentations of all kinds of over-abundance – tomatoes, ramps, lemons, sorghum. The tradition of vegetable wines may not live on but vegetable vinegars are having their day.
I follow Keepwell’s Instagram, which is full of photos of the slimy vinegar mother. If you’ve brewed vinegar or kombucha you may relate to the childlike delight of poking a SCOBY.
Long story short, a post about recipes led to me digging up some recipes for vinegar candy, which led to me scoring some vinegar!
If the idea of vinegar candy disgusts you ~open your mind, man~. Think about lemons, or sour-patch kids.
I have two 1890 recipes for vinegar candy/taffy. The one I used comes from The Oriole Cook Book. I think it’s meant to be made like taffy, but I’m bad at candy. With the vagueness of this recipe, you could basically make it any hardness (possibly changing the flavor along the way.) I opted to cook it to hard-ball stage for an end result that was sticky, chewy, and surprisingly strong on the vinegar funk. The candies had a really unique taste that might make a good holiday gift (for an adult.) This was certainly not a candy that would make trick-or-treaters happy, but who asked them anyway?
Recipe:
- 3 Cups sugar
- .5 Cup vinegar
- butter the size of a walnut
Three cups white sugar, ½ cup vinegar. Boil from 20 minutes to half an hour; just before taking from the fire add butter the size of a walnut; pour in buttered plates to cool and pull; cut into sticks, or squares.
Recipe from “Oriole Cook Book,” Ladies’ Foreign Missionary Society of the Eutaw Place Baptist Church, Baltimore, 1890
