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Raspberry Vinegar
Take six pounds of ripe raspberries, and pour on them four pints of the best vinegar. Leave them thus for four days, frequently stirring, but not mashing the fruit so as to bruise the seeds; then place a piece of clean fresh washed linen or flannel in a colander, and filter the vinegar; to each pint of juice add two pounds of loaf-sugar; put it into glazed jar or pan, which place in boiling water and keep there till the juice boils thick and syrupy. Let it become cold, then bottle it. The whole process should be carried on in a glazed kettle or earthen vessel. The same formula may be used with other small fruits.
This is a drinking vinegar — a shrub — rather than a salad dressing, and the sugar-to-juice ratio tells you so. The one thing to respect is the instruction not to bruise the fruit: crushed raspberry seeds turn the syrup bitter and cloudy, and no amount of straining takes it back out.
- Scale and yieldSix pounds of raspberries steeped in four pints of vinegar will strain to something over four pints of liquid, depending on how much the fruit absorbs and holds back; at two pounds of sugar per pint that means a very large quantity of sugar and several quarts of finished syrup. Quartering the whole thing gives a more manageable batch.
- Loaf-sugarLoaf sugar was refined white sugar sold in a hard cone and broken or crushed as needed. Ordinary granulated sugar is the direct equivalent, weight for weight.
- "The best vinegar"Period recipes calling for the best vinegar generally meant a clean, well-flavoured wine or cider vinegar rather than a coarse one. A vinegar of about 5 percent acidity is a sensible choice for a four-day steep.
- Glazed vesselsThe insistence on a glazed jar or earthen pan is a warning against the tin, copper and iron pots of the period, which react with vinegar. Nineteenth-century lead glazes carry their own risk, so use stainless steel, glass or heatproof ceramic instead — the point of the instruction still holds.
- The four-day steepKeep the crock covered and somewhere cool, and press the floating fruit under the surface each time you stir. Berries left dry on top are where mould starts. If you see any fuzz, discard the batch.
- StrainingLinen or flannel in a colander is a jelly bag; a double layer of damp muslin or a clean cotton tea towel does the same work. Let it drip rather than squeezing, for the same reason you were told not to mash the fruit.
- "Place in boiling water"This is a bain-marie, so the syrup cannot rise much above the temperature of boiling water and the fruit flavour is not scorched. It is slow work, and stir now and then to dissolve the sugar fully before it begins to reduce.
- Keeping and servingBottle cold in sterilised glass and refrigerate once opened; the sugar and acid together make it very stable. Serve about one part syrup to eight parts cold water or soda water, or spoon it over ice cream or a fruit fool.
Fruit vinegars of this kind belong to the family of shrubs — from the Arabic sharāb, a drink — sweetened acid syrups that were diluted with water as a summer cooler and dosed by the spoonful for sore throats and fevers. Raspberry was the favourite version in British and American household books through the nineteenth century: it was pantry stock, put up in season and kept on the shelf for whatever it was needed for. The construction is a preserving technique as much as a flavouring one, since vinegar and a heavy sugar syrup together keep the fruit without canning. The closing line, that the same formula suits other small fruits, is the practical heart of it — currants, blackberries and strawberries were all treated the same way.