No matter what cuisines you cook from, you likely have at least one bottle of vinegar in your cabinet. Aside from staples such as oil, salt, and sugar, few other ingredients have such a ubiquitous presence. We want to help you understand the scientific journey behind how vinegar is made and used to pickle, preserve, season, braise, marinate, and dress foods across the globe.
What Is Vinegar?
The word vinegar is derived from the French word “vinaigre”; “vin” translates to wine and “aigre” translates to sour. Its first recorded use was by the Babylonians around 5000 BCE, as people discovered that wine gone “bad” actually yielded its own delicious and versatile product. While this wine may have been made from grapes, it may also have been made from many other fruits or grains like rice. Similar discoveries were likely being made across the world with organic materials native to those regions.
How Is Vinegar Made?
Two steps are required to make vinegar. First, yeasts convert sugars to alcohol. Then, naturally occurring Acetobacter bacteria convert the alcohol to acetic acid. The acetobacter can’t thrive in a concentration of alcohol greater than about 10 percent, so more potent ingredients are typically diluted before e production. Other vinegars are diluted afterward.
Most vinegars are pasteurized to extend shelf life.
