[Sca-cooks] sour grape juice vs. verjus?

[lilinah at earthlink.net]

Madhavi wrote:
> Does anyone know if there is a significant taste difference between French
> or American verjus/verjuice and the "sour grape juice" sold by Sadaf and
> other Persian and Turkish brands? The Sadaf sour grape juice is 1/5th the
> price of the verjuice. I'm doing a feast next month and need to order quite
> a bit of it.

My experience with several brands of American verjus vs. Arabic sour grape juice is that verjus is far less harsh.

One California brand (which i can't find any more... Consortio? or something like that) i found actually drinkable... but then i don't like things very sweet. Others have not been exactly drinkable, but had a nice balance between sour and fruity.

The Arabic sour grape juice - abghurah -- and i used two different brands, was extremely harsh, and i mean, extremely! No balance of sour and fruity there, just acidic and acrid. I did find that after sitting in the back of my fridge for a year or so, the remainder (about 2/3 of a bottle) mellowed so that it had that sour/fruity balance, and did not feel like varnish remover anymore, although i would not call it drinkable. I don't know how it would compare to the sour grape juice in the Medieval period.
--
Urtatim (that's err-tah-TEEM)
the persona formerly known as Anahita