@mountainjewel's competition this week is about making your own herbal vinegars by foraging in your gardens or in the wild for herbs to flavour vinegar. It's a beautiful idea, especially in Spring time in the U.S where everything is blossoming and blooming. I was really excited about it and then (cue disappointed noise) I realised that yet again, I was out of the running of a competition because I was on the flipside downunder and it's Autumn here (or Fall, if you need the translation). No problem! said @mountainjewel - you can play (yay!) - and sent me on an Autumnal contemplation and wander.
Except, my garden (and the entire landscape) at this time of year is in decline. The deciduous trees are losing their leaves, the summer vegetables have been ripped up and composted to make way for winter plantings (although there are a few tomatoes ripening on the vine) and the herbs have really suffered - we trimmed the oregano the other day as the flowers had died off, and we had to replant our thyme because it just didn't get enough water during the long, hot summer we just suffered through (we only had rain this week, which was a relief, as it was much needed). As for bush foods, there was none around my immediate environment, and it felt like cheating (as well as time consuming) to go bush to find some.
It sounds bereft around here, doesn't it? But the light is beautiful, and the birds are singing. The sky is the bluest of blues, and the colour contrast of reds, golds, whites and oranges are stunning against blue skies. If you listen carefully when you play the video below, you might be able to hear cockatoos and parrots.
I was just about to go up and go inside when I remembered the pears and the quinces. Wait - I thought - it's just after Easter, and what do I do every Easter? I MAKE VINEGAR. Literally make it from scratch, from wild pears and wild apples in the Otways. We usually go out foraging and fight our way through brambles to find fruit that's grown from tossed cores and manages to survive drought and fire and that most people drive past in their cars rushing to their various busy projects.
Thus, I decided to check my vinegar cabinet. What, you don't have a vinegar cabinet? My husband thinks I'm hilarious. Vinegar is so cheap, he says. But yeah, I say, what if there is a ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE AND WE RUN OUT OF VINEGAR! (of course, I win this argument - you can't argue with an apocalypse).
In my vinegar hideout I find a jar of raspberry kombucha vinegar. If you've made kombucha before, you know what happens if you leave it for ages, don't you? It's face suckeringly powerful, and no hipster label is going to make this sellable to anyone. My second ferment, when you flavour it with fruits, was left to go to raspberry vinegar, which was quite good, but I'm still not sure what to pair it with. Look at those scobies in there, nestling up against each other like big fat babies! I'll chop those up for the compost, I think.
However, next to the raspberry vinegar are my bottles of Pear-egar and Quin-egar, as I like to call them. This is homemade vinegar made out of pears and quinces. Sure, call it 'pear vinegar' if you like, but this is way more fun! I'd made apple last year too, but we'd used it all up already. The pear vinegar is really delicate in flavour and quite crisp. You can literally smell the pears and it's quite gorgeous. The quince needs a little longer, as it smells like quince cider (I know, who's had quince cider, right? No one. But if you can imagine a proper apple cider, scrumpy style, that's what it's like, except redolent of quinces).
Last year I realised that you could make vinegar out of any fruit, not just grapes. Of course, Italian balsamics and grape wine vinegars originated out of those delightful accidents where they forgot about wine and it turned to vinegar (impossible, right? How could anyone FORGET about wine?), but of course, we all know apple cider vinegar too, which has wonderful health benefits. Thus, it follows that you can make vinegar out of all kinds of fruit. And as mountainfeed.com explains it below, it's full of live bacteria.
It's super easy to make, as long as you have some fruit! Today I decided to combine the pear and quinces to show you how I do it.
Homemade Pear and Quince Vinegar
- Chop washed fruit into medium sized pieces. Place them in a sterilised wide mouth jar. Here, I used about 6 pieces of fruit.
- Mix about two tablespoons of sugar (the 'mother' will feed off this if your fruit is too tar) with water and pour over the apples to cover.
- Weight the apples down so they don't float to the surface. The first time I did this, I forgot this step and ended up with a mouldy mush, which you DON'T want. You can try a plastic lid and weight that down with a cup if you don't have proper brewing weights.
- Cover the jar with cheesecloth or paper towel and secure with a rubberband, which helps keep fruitflies at bay.
Then - the hard part. You have to be PATIENT. Put it in a warm, dark place for a few weeks. When you check on it, it will smell like fermented cider (yum!). Strain out the liquid and dispose of the fruit, and return the liquid to the jar. Let it do it's thing - it's dependent on the air temperature really and can take 6 weeks or 6 months! I actually forget about mine until the following year. After a few weeks, though, you can taste it - when it gets to the taste you like, you can put it in a nice bottle and start using it.
I'm sorry I don't have any gorgeous flowery decorative flavoured vinegars to show you, but I hope you get a little something out of this post - maybe next time you can make the vinegar first, THEN flavour it! Woo hoo!
However, what I DID realise, is that I already did it - a few weeks ago (is there a vinegar that makes you less forgetful?) - I flavoured my vinegar to make it into a fire cider, a medicinal vinegar that helps ward off the flu. I'm going to down a shot now, as I feel some wintery autumnal sniffles coming on! Please do [check it out] - if you get it started now, it will definitely be brewed for your winter!
Thanks @mountainjewel for prompting me to write this post - what an awesome idea for a competition.
