[Sca-cooks] Was vinegar or verjuice most used in sauces?

[Stefan li Rous]

Jim  Chevallier made an off-hand comment of:
<<< Admittedly this Belgian version does use white wine (which would more  
likely have been verjuice in the period) >>>

Hmmm. This brings up an interesting question. Was it really more common to use verjuice instead of vinegar in period?

Of course, we have the usual problem of what is meant by period.

I don't have access to Johnna's Concordance, but a quick glance through the sauces-msg file in the Florilegium seems to show about as many or more sauces using vinegar as verjuice. And a lot of recipes that call for vinegar or verjuice. Or vinegar and verjuice.

We also have possible translation fuzziness, where verjuice might get replaced with vinegar because the translator didn't know the difference or was using the latter because it was easier to get these days. Which is an example of why I always like to see the original for redactions. :-)

Maybe it varies more by the type of sauce or region or time period?

Opinions?

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