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Vinegar Revival Cookbook: Artisanal Recipes for Brightening Dishes and Drinks with Homemade Vinegars
The next frontier in fermenting and home brewing is the essential ingredient for enhancing your home cooking. Just about everyone has at least one bottle of vinegar in the pantry, but not many realize how much better the homemade kind tastes—the flavor is incomparable. And it's easy make; all you need is a bottle of your favorite alcoholic beverage, a starter (or mother of vinegar), and a few weeks of hands-off time.
Vinegar Revival shows you how to use homemade or store-bought vinegar--made from apple cider, beer, wine, fruit scraps, herbs, and more--to great effect with more than 50 recipes. Here are drinks and cocktails (Strawberry Rhubarb Shrub, Switchel, and Mint Vinegar Julep), pickles (Cured Grapes and Pickled Whole Garlic), sauces and vinaigrettes (Roasted Hot Sauce and Miso-Ginger Dressing), mains and sides (Saucy Piquant Pork Chops and Roasted Red Cabbage), and dessert (Vinegar Pie and Balsamic Ice Cream). Whether you want to experiment with home brewing or just add a little zing to your meals, Vinegar Revival demystifies the process of making and tasting vinegar.
Vinegar Revival shows you how to use homemade or store-bought vinegar--made from apple cider, beer, wine, fruit scraps, herbs, and more--to great effect with more than 50 recipes. Here are drinks and cocktails (Strawberry Rhubarb Shrub, Switchel, and Mint Vinegar Julep), pickles (Cured Grapes and Pickled Whole Garlic), sauces and vinaigrettes (Roasted Hot Sauce and Miso-Ginger Dressing), mains and sides (Saucy Piquant Pork Chops and Roasted Red Cabbage), and dessert (Vinegar Pie and Balsamic Ice Cream). Whether you want to experiment with home brewing or just add a little zing to your meals, Vinegar Revival demystifies the process of making and tasting vinegar.
160 pages, Hardcover
Published August 1, 2017
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93 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
October 4, 2017
Heavy on adjectives, light on techniques.
That's not really a complaint so much as it is an observation that this is a book for people who already feel comfortable brewing, fermenting, and otherwise crafting artisinal things. In fact, if the word "artisinal" is already unironically a healthy part of your vocabulary, this book is meant for you. And Rosenblum makes the vinegar creation process sound so tasty and fun, even the noobs will be tempted to jump in and get a barrel going.
However, the process for actually MAKING the stuff is described with less detail than enthusiasm. Late in the book there's a chapter on hardcore, fiddly techniques, but beneath all of Rosenblum's pretty language the process seems to be "Pour shit in a jar and let it rip." There's a lot of trial and error to it, too, so pretty much the only way to learn how to do it is to do it and check the "troubleshooting" section for signs of anything that might go wrong. If you're already making kombucha or sourdough bread on your own, you'll be the least mystified reader in the audience.
The first recipe chapter covers basic vinegars and things you might want to put in booze, biasing this book in favor of drinkers rather than abstainers. Just in case you didn't get the point, the second chapter is devoted entirely to cocktails, so you'll have to flip a bit further for the sections on pickles/preserves and condiments/sauces. Finally, Rosenblum throws you a few chapters of recipes for things you can make with your homemade vinegars, including desserts, which will make sense to fans of the strawberry-balsamic combination.
This book will circ best in urban communities with enthusiastic DIY foodie cultures, and is recommended specifically for libraries that serve those communities. Not for everybody, to be sure, but darned if I'm not tempted to whip up a batch of vinegar myself, for science.
That's not really a complaint so much as it is an observation that this is a book for people who already feel comfortable brewing, fermenting, and otherwise crafting artisinal things. In fact, if the word "artisinal" is already unironically a healthy part of your vocabulary, this book is meant for you. And Rosenblum makes the vinegar creation process sound so tasty and fun, even the noobs will be tempted to jump in and get a barrel going.
However, the process for actually MAKING the stuff is described with less detail than enthusiasm. Late in the book there's a chapter on hardcore, fiddly techniques, but beneath all of Rosenblum's pretty language the process seems to be "Pour shit in a jar and let it rip." There's a lot of trial and error to it, too, so pretty much the only way to learn how to do it is to do it and check the "troubleshooting" section for signs of anything that might go wrong. If you're already making kombucha or sourdough bread on your own, you'll be the least mystified reader in the audience.
The first recipe chapter covers basic vinegars and things you might want to put in booze, biasing this book in favor of drinkers rather than abstainers. Just in case you didn't get the point, the second chapter is devoted entirely to cocktails, so you'll have to flip a bit further for the sections on pickles/preserves and condiments/sauces. Finally, Rosenblum throws you a few chapters of recipes for things you can make with your homemade vinegars, including desserts, which will make sense to fans of the strawberry-balsamic combination.
This book will circ best in urban communities with enthusiastic DIY foodie cultures, and is recommended specifically for libraries that serve those communities. Not for everybody, to be sure, but darned if I'm not tempted to whip up a batch of vinegar myself, for science.
October 28, 2019
I actually worked through a few of the vinegar recipes and pickling recipes and it took a long time to actually “finish” this book.
The vinegars were ok but since my taste runs to complex, solera-style that take decades to make (sherry vinegar from Spain COLUMELA’s 50 year my favourite) the book was only interesting from the technical point of view. I did start a “balance of wine” vinegar but that failed due to old wines ... the vinegar mother died.
The pickling section was excellent as was the make your own mustard and ketchup sections.
The vinegars were ok but since my taste runs to complex, solera-style that take decades to make (sherry vinegar from Spain COLUMELA’s 50 year my favourite) the book was only interesting from the technical point of view. I did start a “balance of wine” vinegar but that failed due to old wines ... the vinegar mother died.
The pickling section was excellent as was the make your own mustard and ketchup sections.
May 6, 2021
I really enjoy a local olive oil and vinegar store in my town and have been working to incorporate more vinegar into my families diet so when I saw this book I got pretty excited. I will be honest the process of making my own vinegar sounds completely overwhelming but was fascinating to read about. I spent some good time with this book and enjoyed many of the simpler recipes shared especially the BBQ sauce and mustard.
February 27, 2018
I want to make almost everything in this book. It not only explains how to make many different vinegars at home (and which not to attempt), it also has a number of excellent sounding recipes to use your newly fermented vinegar. Can't wait to start.
January 10, 2024
Excellent book on how to make your own vinegar from scratch. Thanks to this book, I've got my first batches of red wine vinegar and malt vinegar started. Hopefully by this time next month, I'll have something far better than anything I could buy in the store!
April 17, 2018
Clear instructions on the production the basic kinds of vinegar at the beginning and then the books slips into an all purpose cookbook rehashing many common recipes.
March 18, 2020
Not interested by the recipes and the rest of the content is pretty basic.
May 25, 2020
Really interesting information about Vinegar. I can’t wait to try the recipes.
July 8, 2021
Very interesting book with precise instructions and uses. I love home made vinegars but decided it is another task I do not need to do.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews