SC - Re: Not eating cute furry animals

[Philip & Susan Troy]

At 18:10 -0500 2001-04-07, Stefan li Rous wrote:

> If they look ripe, but aren't, how do you differentiate them from
> the grapes that are ripe and useable for wine.

For an exact answer I'd have to go back and read the French again,
to see if they gave additional details.

All I remember is that they were said to have the same colour as 
the genuinely ripe grapes.  I presume that they look very similar, 
enough that a careless or dishonest picker could throw a bunch of 
'verjus' grapes in with the ripe bunches and hope to get away with 
it if it were not for the later check by the expert 'sorter'.  I 
presume that when the 'sorter' checks them, perhaps by looking 
closely at the colour pattern, or by squeezing them a bit, it is 
easy to tell the difference.


> > Second aside:  The finest Dijon mustard is apparently made using 
> > verjuice, not vinegar.  This usage is said to have begun in 1752.
> 
> Where does this info on the first usage of verjuice in mustard
> sauces come from? Personally, I think this sounds rather late.

Many of the Dijon and mustard web pages refer to this fact / legend.  
They sometimes read as though the texts are copied from the glossy 
tourist brochures put out by the 'syndicats d'initiative'.  They 
name the person who supposedly first used verjuice instead of 
vinegar (I didn't write down his name), and give the date 1752.  

What the good burghers of Dijon choose to say about their best 
mustard has no special claim to being accurate.  After all, many 
of them today use vinegar or white wine instead of verjuice.  
Some of the web pages also go on and on about a supposed special 
relationship between the dukes of Burgundy and the mustard makers.  
Makes one want to reach for the legend-o-meter.

Both Viandier and Menagier (circa 1390) use vinegar for their
mustard sauces.  Casteau (1604) uses mustard sauce, but doesn't 
give a recipe.


> However, maybe the use of verjuice in mustard sauces coincides
> with the interest of verjuice in food items in general. Perhaps
> before this time, verjuice was considered too precious to be used
> in mustard sauces?

One of the web pages that I passed while chasing down the mustard
lead (hoping to find a mustard maker with their own private verjuice 
vineyard that they wanted to brag about -- no such luck) claimed 
that in medieval times verjuice was in fact cheaper than vinegar.  
That could have been true in season, as most descriptions suggest 
that verjuice needed less processing than vinegar.  However, 
there's no particular reason to trust this fact either -- I ran 
across a lot of nonsense about verjuice on some of the pages.

Viandier and Menagier use verjuice nearly twice as often as vinegar.
The author of Menagier is generally assumed to have been well off 
but not rich (he's careful to send his empty torches back for a
refund).  This suggests that verjuice wasn't in the "too precious" 
category for him.


Thorvald

- -- 
All my best,
Thorvald Grimsson / James Prescott <prescotj at telusplanet.net> (PGP user)

"It is impossible to forsee the consequences of being clever,
so you try to avoid it whenever you can." Christopher Strachey