[Sca-cooks] Re: Re: grapes for verjuice

[James Prescott]

At 23:39 -0500 2005-04-22, Stefan li Rous wrote:

>>  There were in period, and are today, many vinyards that devote specific
>>  areas and varieties of grapes destined to become verjuice.
>
>  Upon what are you basing this comment? At least 
> today, there seem to be only a few sources for 
> verjuice. Are these special varieties today 
> just for verjuice? Or are these the same 
> varieties used for making wines?


I base my comments on fairly wide reading and research over a number
of years into what verjuice was and is.


First, Scully, The Art of Cookery in the Middle Ages, Boydell:
Woodbridge, 1995.  Page 102-103.  The quote within the quote is from
Menagier.

   For instance verjuice, yielded by a particular variety of grape at a
   date earlier than that of the regular grape harvest, afforded
   medieval cuisine a sharp, almost bitter flavour.  The difficulty
   was that verjuice did not have a very long life; a twelve-months
   supply was all that any household might sensibly lay in, and that
   twelve months dated from mid-summer.  A supply of verjuice could
   easily run out before the new grapes were available and pressed.
   However, from the time that the last batch of 'old' verjuice
   was either exhausted or no longer serviceable, it was not
   necessary simply to pass over the many recipes that called for
   the acrid tang of verjuice: cooks learned to concoct adequate
   substitutions for verjuice, and so could continue to serve
   their _Gratonea_ and _Grattonata_ ... or _Brouet de verjuz_ ...
   throughout the whole year.

   Furthermore, clever gardeners or vine-keepers had devised a
   means to have fresh verjuice grapes even at Christmastide!

     If you want to have verjuice on the trellis at Christmas.
     When you see that buds are beginning to form, and before
     the flowers open, cut off the bunch of buds twice in
     succession [over several months], and the third time
     let them develop until Christmas.  Master John of Hantecourt
     says that you should cut off the shoot beneath the bunch,
     and that the lower sprout will form a new bunch of buds.


OED says for 'verjuice grape' "one or other variety of grape suitable
for the making of verjuice"; and mentions four grape varieties as
'verjuice grapes', Chasselas (1706), Gouais, Farineus, Bourdelas
(le Grey) (1725).


Ray et al, "Dictionnaire historique de la langue française", Le
Robert: Paris, 1992 for 'verjus' has "suc acide de certaines
espèces de raisin cueilli vert" which in my translation is the
acid juice of certain species of grape gathered green (unripe).


Viandier in three recipes calls for "verjuice grapes" specifically,
referring to whole verjuice grapes or (in one recipe) bunches of
verjuice grapes.


From the web, a quotation said to be from a French dictionary
(Bescherolle) of 1852 for 'verjus':

   Variété de raisin, à grains longs et gros à peau forte et dure
   et qui n'est pas propre à faire du vin.

   (my translation: variety of grape, with long and large fruit
   with strong and tough skin, and which is not suitable for
   making wine)


>>  The grapes are deliberately picked unripe, and turned into verjuice.
>
>  Yes. Verjuice was also made from other fruits 
> such as crabapples. I don't know whether 
> crabapples or grapes were considered to make 
> superior verjuice in period. That bit of info 
> would be useful to have. It could be that 
> crabapples made superior verjuice but were more 
> expensive than using grapes pulled for 
> thinning. Or it could be that crabapples were 
> used to make verjuice in regions that didn't 
> have native grapes and thus was cheaper than 
> using imported verjuice.

From all I've read, the grape verjuice was considered the superior
verjuice.  It was used in large quantities, indicating large scale
production.  Other sources were either subsitutes or alternatives.

For example, from Scully (Art of Cookery as above) page 111:

   In the first place, in the matter of the medieval _taste_, we have
   already spoken of the grape products, that is, wine, vinegar,
   verjuice, and must.  These ingredients were in just about universal
   use.  There are few dishes or sauces in which the liquid requirements
   are not satisfied by grape juice in one of its forms, fermented or
   not.  Two basic reasons probably account for this reliance upon
   wine and its relatives, their durability and the diversity of
   their flavours.  While generally rich and fruity, red and white
   wines, vinegar, verjuice and must all possessed a distinct tang
   in a greater or less degree that was very highly valued by
   medieval cooks and their patrons.
   ...
   And these products wer produced across continental Europe, were
   readily available in season, and were affordable in the normal
   household.
   ...
   In the fifteenth century some cooks began to resort to the citrus
   fruits for this bitter or sharp taste.  Though limes, lemons,
   citrons and oranges (always the bitter orange at this time) appear
   in Italian and Hispanic collections, and are squeezed for their
   juices, vinegar and verjuice are never displaced from their
   dominant positions, and much less did wine yield any ground at
   all.  The pungent, fruity flavour was desired and sought.  Many
   recipes will, in fact, direct that the cook should judge the
   amount of verjuice or vinegar to enter the dish by the way it
   should dominate all other flavours, including any spices, in the
   dish.  While must was richly flavourful, wine, vinegar and
   verjuice furnished the cooking of the period with its zest.


Crabapples, gooseberries, and sorrel were used as substitutes.  For
example, Menagier in May [when last season's verjuice would be running
low], for a wedding, orders sorrel to be used to make sorrel verjuice,
and two paragraphs later also orders sorrel verjuice (one quart)
already made up from the saucemaker [a merchant].

Menagier has a recipe for sorrel verjuice which includes "old white
verjuice" as an ingredient, which to me indicates that the unique
flavour of verjuice (from grapes) was still sought even in the
substitute verjuice.  This recipe indicates that parsley, shoots of
wheat, and tender vine shoots might also be added to the sorrel.


>>  Verjuice is made deliberately and (in period) in large quantities, not
>>  as a way of getting rid of otherwise useless grapes (though doubtless
>>  small quantities were made from such material).
>
>  And this, I definitely would like to see any 
> evidence for. Perhaps there are agricultural 
> treatises which talk about growing grapes for 
> verjuice? Or manor reports which say x amount 
> of vineyard for wine grapes and  y amount of 
> vineyard for verjuice?

I don't have any period acreage figures.

The first observation is the sheer quantity of verjuice consumed.
You just don't get such quantities from culls.  Especially when
the verjuice season was mid-summer, not during the wine harvest.

Scully in "Chiquart's 'On Cookery'" (Peter Lang: New York, 1986)
on page 13 orders 8 'sommes' of white wine vinegar,  8 'sommes'
of red wine vinegar, and 20 'sommes' of good verjuice.  This
shows that slightly more verjuice would be used than vinegar.
The corresponding amount of wine used in cooking for this feast
does not, alas, seem to be given.

There is a mention (not well attributed) on a web site which
indicates that the municipal office in Picardy called the
"Echevinage" (date 1701 or earlier) was responsible for
inspecting the quality of the verjuice.



In modern times:

Probably the most common (if not well known) modern use of verjuice
is in some formulations of Dijon mustard (using verjuice from the
Bourgogne region).


A web site describing the vineyards of Les Verdots (not
connected with the Dijon mustard) mentions 20 hectares, of
which 3% is planted with "Périgord (Cépage local dont certains
font le fameux verjus" (my translation is "Perigord, a local
variety of grape from which some people make the famous
verjuice").


People may be confused by two moderns meanings of 'verjus': the
first being the name of the unripe grapes rejected during the
harvest of ripe grapes for wine; and any second crop of grapes
in the same season from a vine.


Thorvald