[Sca-cooks] souring agents

[David Walddon]

Why do you say that balsamic is post period? 
There is a manuscript painting (one of the Humorals) that seems to indicate differently (visually not written). 
It has a small barrel being placed in the attic of a building, exactly as balsamic is produced. 
I certainly agree that we have yet to find written evidence of balsamic but I think that this might be just a matter of time and the right source! 
Saba/Sapa production was certainly in full swing in Italy by the Renaissance and it is only a small step from there. 

Eduardo 


On Feb 24, 2014, at 6:28 PM, Stefan li Rous wrote:

> Galefridus replied to me with:
> <<< Both verjuice and vinegar were common souring agents in the medieval 
> Islamic kitchen. I'm at work, so I can't do the whole statistical 
> analysis thing, but they loved their sweet and sour dishes, using the 
> juice or pulp of lemon, bitter orange, pomegranate, citron, and several 
> varieties of vinegar (al-Warraq gives a number of recipes for preparing 
> different kinds of vinegar).>>>
> 
> What kinds of vinegar does al-Warraq speak of? We've discussed vinegar before, but I've not been sure which types were period vs. modern or even what can make a successful vinegar. Since the term comes from "wine", at one time I thought that wine vinegar was likely the only period vinegar. However, I suspect these others might be:
> white wine vinegar
> red wine vinegar
> apple cider vinegar
> balsamic vinegar  (post period)
> rice vinegar (not period for Europe)
> ale or beer vinegar? Is this the same as malt vinegar?
> 
> Can you make vinegar from orange juice? Although if you can get sour oranges, why would you?
> 
> <<< Verjuice/sour grapes are still part of 
> Middle Eastern cookery -- my local Syrian market sells bottled verjuice 
> at about 1/6 the cost of the fancy gourmet stuff (about $6 a quart), and 
> I've bought fresh sour grapes from them (available late summer/early 
> fall) and made my own. >>>
> 
> How do you make verjuice? Just squeeze out the grape juice and use that? Wait a while to age it, and use that?
> 
> Thanks,
>   Stefan
> PS: Maybe I should move the vinegar and verjuice files in the Florilegium FOOD section to the FOOD-CONDIMENTS section? Or are they more of an ingredient than condiment? Where would you look?
> 
> --------
> 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 ****
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Sca-cooks mailing list
> Sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org
> http://lists.ansteorra.org/listinfo.cgi/sca-cooks-ansteorra.org