[Sca-cooks] sugar cane vinegar

[Stefan li Rous]

Devra mentioned:
<<< In one of her historical novels about 1830's New Orleans, Barbara  
Hambley
discussed the cutting and processing of sugar cane. According to her,  
the juice
must be boiled down fairly soon after crushing the cane and  
extracting it, or
  the juice will go sour. She's usually fairly reliable in the  
historical
trivia  end of things. >>>

Thanks, Devra. My first thought when I read this was that, yes, with  
the sugar concentration mentioned by someone else sugar cane might  
well turn into vinegar rather than ferment. Perhaps it is a race  
between which type of beastie gets a foothold first. But I also  
remembered our discussions about wine turning into vinegar, so it's  
not that simple. Hmmm. So wine can turn to vinegar, but I don't  
remember any comments about the opposite happening.

Anyway, this tickled my memory about sugar cane vinegar and I went  
rummaging in my stash of odd-ball food items (TM), and yes this list  
is largely responsible for me having such a thing, and I found the  
bottle that I was thinking of.

"Sugar Cane Vinegar", Made in Martinique since 1885. 16.9 oz. Product  
of France. 5% acetic acid. "Sugar Cane Vinegar - This Sugar cane  
vinegar has a subtil (sic) sweet taste and will bring in every dish a  
unic (sic) flavor of the Island it comes from. Great in al  
vinaigrettes and salads. Because of the high mineral content in this  
100% natural sugar cane vinegar, a deposit could appear that does not  
affect the quality of this product."

Hmmm. Under Nutrition Facts, it says "Calories 0" and "Total Carb.  
0g". All the sugar in the sugar cane syrup is gone?! I suspect since  
they get to round down in their labeling that with a serving size of  
1/2 tbsp that there is some still there, but just doesn't have to be  
declared.

Stefan
--------
THLord Stefan li Rous    Barony of Bryn Gwlad    Kingdom of Ansteorra
    Mark S. Harris           Austin, Texas           
StefanliRous at austin.rr.com
**** See Stefan's Florilegium files at:  http://www.florilegium.org ****