SC - The Making of Verjuice

[Philip & Susan Troy]

> Date: Thu, 5 Mar 1998 11:09:42 -0800
> From: david friedman <ddfr at best.com>
> Subject: Re: SC - The Making of Verjuice
> 
> At 9:29 AM -0500 3/5/98, LrdRas wrote:

> >I can but offer 11 years of trial and error as the source of info.  SFAIK,
> >there is no know source of information which gives those of us living in the
> >Current Middle Ages any indication of methods for home production of verjuice
> >that may have been known to the noncommercial producer of verjuice during the
> >Middle Ages.
> 
> Robert May has a (17th c.) recipe for making verjuice from crab apples;
> that's the nearest thing I have found.
> 
> David/Cariadoc
> http://www.best.com/~ddfr/

Somewhat earlier, and arguably period, is Gervase Markham's "The English
Housewife", published in 1615, but the subject of lawsuits accusing
Markham of plagiarizing his own older works. I doubt the method changed
much over time, and suspect the biggest changes in the process as
described were more a function of geography, since they were using
crabapples instead of grapes.

Period recipe or not, it's pretty clear that medieval cooks were using
something called verjus, and it is fairly reasonable to think it might
be a similar product to what is described in later recipes.

Adamantius  
______________________________________
Phil & Susan Troy
troy at asan.com
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