Photo: Carole Smith/Flickr

Donna Kirk

Well, it’s that time of year…when gardeners put their spades and weeding aside, veggie enthusiasts retreat from fresh food markets, homesteaders quickly put finishing touches to rain water collection devices and locals leave their favorite cafés and bistros as they head out of town. During this moment of communal repose, some folks turn inward, their minds clear, their counters bespeckled and lined with glittering jars, their attention undividedly fixed…fixed on vinegar.  Om.

Canning season is upon us. You’ll begin to hear the distant rumble of a soft stampede to the canning aisle (we are talking flip-flops and moccasins this time of year) and overhear conversations that center on boiling times, pectin and — apple cider, coconut or malted?
To understand this vinegar jollification, let’s delve into some vinegar facts and vinegar lore. According to the Vinegar Institute, vinegar (aka sour wine, or vin aigre in French) is what happens when you ferment sugar to make alcohol and then ferment the alcohol. This was discovered more than 10,000 years ago when a jar of wine went bad. Since then, vinegar has taken its place along side some of humanities most venerated historical figures: Cleopatra, for one, who purportedly dissolved pearls in vinegar to win a wager that she could consume a fortune in a day; and The Great General Hannibal and his army of elephant-riding men, who rode through the Alps heating up obstructive rocks and dousing them with vinegar so that they would crumble, leaving smooth sailing the rest of the way.

What to make of, or rather with, this glorious nectar?

There are impressive lists at both the Vinegar Institute and at VinegarTips.com of things vinegar will do for you (from waxing floors and nursing the sick to deterring ants). Many recipes call for White Distilled Vinegar, but follow the directions closely. Other recipes allow you to use the kind you prefer. The number of recipes in cookbooks and at websites, however, for jarring or preserving your summer stash of veggies (with different flavors of vinegar) is downright inspiring.

Photo: Mariko/Flickr

As for me, I recently jarred my first batch of pickles (the recipe called for apple cider vinegar) and, feeling emboldened, I set out to jar as many different things as I could this summer. Flipping casually through Ball’s Complete Book Of Home Preserving, I instantly fell in love with recipes such as Peach Salsa, Jardiniere, Piccalilli Relish, Golden Gossip Chutney, Lemon-Sage Wine Mustard or, for the truly brave, Marrow ‘n Onion Mustard Pickles. That’s when I noticed that the one staple ingredient in all these recipes was the ancient, acrid-smelling, mouth twisting, eye-squinting, tart liquid suddenly worthy of all this pomp and praise.

It made me realize that, whether you go back to the original homesteaders of 1776, flash forward to the era of Victory Gardens, or read this post typed in my small kitchen in northern New England, one thing remains: we preserve our history in many ways. Part of that history is jarring our relishes, chutneys, salsas, vegetables, ketchups, dressings and sauces. Let us praise vinegar.