Michel wrote on Thu, 04 Nov 2010 17:07:00 -0500:

>> Gawd! How fussy do we have to get for vinegar steeped over
>> grape skins?

> That's because you think of vinegar as being a condiment.
> Producing good vinegar takes years. The term "vinaigre" in
> French is made up first of the word "vin" which refers to wine
> and "aigre" which translates more accurately as "acrid".
> Technically, a laboratory produced clear acetic acid solution
> (5 or 7%) is not vinegar.

> Vinegar, in Latin, is "vinum aegrum" or "feeble wine".

> "Vinegar has been made and used for thousands of years. Traces
> of it have been found in Egyptian urns dating from around 3000
> BC. According to Shennong's Herb Classic, vinegar was invented
> in China during the Xia Dynasty, around 2000 BC.

> "In the Bible, it is mentioned as something not very pleasant
> (Ps. 69:21, Prov. 25:20), but Boaz allows Ruth to "dip her piece of
> bread
> in the vinegar" (Ruth 2:14). Jesus was offered vinegar or sour
> wine while on the cross (Matthew 27:48; Mark 15:36). In Islamic
> traditions, vinegar is one of the four favored condiments of
> the Prophet Muhammad, who called it a "Blessed seasoning".

> "In 1864, Louis Pasteur showed that vinegar results from a
> natural fermentation process."

> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vinegar

The sour wine that Caesar's soldiers drank was called vinegar and we
have to pay the equivalent of 2-3 hours work by a legionnaire for a few
ounces now!
--

James Silverton
Potomac, Maryland

Email, with obvious alterations: not.jim.silverton.at.verizon.not