Nourished Kitchen» apple cider vinegar

The Garden Remedy that Survived the Bubonic Plague: Four Thieves Vinegar

Jenny — Tue, 19 Jul 2011 23:01:41 +0000

Four Thieves Vinegar can cure the plague, at least, that’s what French folklore teaches us. And while I can’t comment on the veracity of this statement (and, no, it hasn’t been approved by the Food & Drug Administration), I will say that in every little garden whether it’s an expansive lot on a farmstead, a 10-foot by 10-foot plot in your community garden or a nook of potted herbs on your balcony, harbors powerful medicine in its own right. And when I venture out to my plot in the community garden or trim the kitchen herbs in terra cotta pots and plastic tubs on my porch, I know that this medicine is good enough for me.

Four Thieves Vinegar, a folkloric elixir thought to protect against black death, finds its way to my kitchen in the summer time when fresh herbs from the garden are plentiful. Four Thieves Vinegar is the stuff of legends and of kitchen magic – a beautiful combination of rosemary, sage, mint and raw vinegar that combines for a vibrantly herbaceous and slightly floral concoction that may or may not protect your family from the rigors of medieval plagues, but will definitely enliven plates of sweet lettuces and other summer greens.

Four Thieves Vinegar: Myths & History

When the plague ravaged the city of Marseilles in the seventeenth century, it is said that a fortunate lot of grave robbers and thieves escaped what would have been inevitable illness and subsequent death by covering their bodies and dousing their face masks in an herbal vinegar with strong antibacterial and antiviral properties. Initially, as French folklore tells it, no one quite worried about the grave robbers and thieves who stole into the houses of Marseilles under the cloak of moonless nights to rob victims of the Black Death as, the townspeople assumed, the plague would inevitably infect and kill the thieves, too. But it didn’t.

The thieves continued to assail the homes and graves of the dead with impunity until they were finally caught in the middle of their act, tried and set to be burned at the stake. Astonished by the thieves’ immunity and seemingly indifferent attitude toward the plague that devastated the community so severely, the judges offered the thieves a bargain: in exchange for releasing the cause of their immunity, the thieves would be hanged instead of burned at the stake – a less brutal and more quick end. The thieves acquiesced and surrendered the recipe for their elixir, and the legend has continued to grow since then.

While many recipes for Four Thieves Vinegar abound, there’s no telling now which recipe is most accurate though a recipe written by Jean Valnet, a renowned aromatherapist and herbalist of the early 20th century, may resemble the original more closely than any other. He calls for vinegar, wormwood, meadowsweet, juniper, marjoram, sage, cloves, horse heal, angelica, rosemary, horehound and camphor. Valnet calls for steeping these herbs in vinegar for six weeks before decanting, for a lighter flavor I usually allow my herbs to steep in vinegar for about a week.

Modern herbalist usually use only a handful of herbs: rosemary, sage, lavender, thyme and mint usually make an appearance. Every herbalist and avid keeper of herbs should have his or her own version, and below is mine. Be inventive with your garden herbs.

Four Thieves Vinegar: Ancient Remedy, Modern Uses

While this garden remedy may or may not have helped grave robbers and thieves to stave off the plague that ravaged Europe centuries ago, it seems modern herbalists and gardeners have revived the interest in this garden remedy. Many herbalists use it as a cleansing agent – transferring it to a spray bottle and using it to clean and sterilize kitchen counters or bathrooms; indeed, many of the herbs posess strong antimicrobial effects and vinegar, in any case, makes an excellent natural cleanser. Others recommend using Four Thieves Vinegar in personal care, diluted with water of course, as a cleansing agent for the skin or as an astringent. Among neo-Pagan circles, Four Thieves Vinegar is thought to have protective qualities and some swear that if you dress your doorstep with the vinegar, it’ll keep your enemies away.

As for me, I can’t promise that this vinegar will save you from the black death, make your kitchen counters sparkle, beautify your skin or keep your enemies away, but I do know that it makes an excellent seasoning for braised meats and vegetables and is perfect mixed with a good quality floral olive oil (see sources) in a simple vinaigrette for freshly pickled salad greens and edible flowers.

Four Thieves Vinegar Recipe

garden herbs, garlic & vinegar

Ingredients:

2 tablespoons chopped fresh lavender flowers
2 tablespoons chopped fresh rosemary
2 tablespoons chopped fresh mint
2 tablespoons chopped fresh sage
2 tablespoons chopped fresh marjoram
2 tablespoons chopped fresh anise hyssop
4 cloves garlic, peeled and crushed
1 quart white wine or apple cider vinegar, preferably raw

Equipment:

two 1-quart glass jars with lid
fine-mesh sieve or strainer

Method:

Toss herbs and garlic together in a one-quart mason jar, cover with vinegar and allow them to marinate for seven to ten days in a sunny location. After seven to ten days, strain the vinegar through a fine-mesh sieve into a second, clean 1-quart glass jar.
Store at room temperature until ready to use and serve as you would any seasoned vinegar: as a basis for vinaigrettes or as a seasoning for braised meats and vegetables.

NOTE: When you transfer the seasoned vinegar to a clean jar, consider adding a sprig or two of rosemary or other herbs used in four thieves vinegar as it makes for an attractive display and can then be saved and given as a kitchen gift to a neighbor or friend.

TIME: 5 minutes (active), 7 to 10 days (resting) | YIELD: 1 quart

>Love this post? Check out other Nourished Kitchen recipes:

Melted Apricots with Fresh Raspberries

So simple and so fresh, melted apricots with fresh raspberries is both tart and sweet and served just hot enough to barely warm the belly. I love to serve this dish with plenty of fresh cream.

Tomato & Cucumber Salad

This classic tomato and cucumber salad sparkles with olive oil and lemon juice. Pair it with Moroccan roast chicken or labneh.

And just a head’s up: I wrote this post while participating in the Sowing Millions Project by Real Food Media on behalf of Seeds of Change. I received product and exclusive content to facilitate my post (free seeds rock!). My thoughts and opinions are my own and not of those of Real Food Media or Seeds of Change. I’ll be participating all summer long – sharing garden tips, news and recipes! You can follow seeds of change on facebook, twitter and upload photos to their virtual garden where you’ll undoubtedly see more pictures of my lovely herbs soon.

Did you like this post? Please let me know by leaving a comment. Don't forget to find Nourished Kitchen on Facebook, Twitter and Flickr. © Jenny for Nourished Kitchen, 2011. | Permalink |

A Recipe: Ketchup for Real Food Lovers

Jenny — Fri, 18 Feb 2011 15:28:07 +0000

Homemade ketchup – it sounds complicated as though you’d spend all day in the kitchen pounding your way through vats of tomatoes and slowly simmering them away in kettles on a wooden stove. Making homemade ketchup from scratch seems complex, almost unfathomable in an era when quick-fix, all-in-one bagged skillet dinners constitute “cooking from scratch.” It’s sad day when we’ve forgotten our collective culinary heritage.

And as difficult and complex has preparing ketchup from scratch may seem, like most traditional foods that we seem to have lost along the way, it’s not. Much like rendering lard, curing olives or making a good pot of chicken broth to chase away the flu, preparing a traditional homemade ketchup requires only a few simple steps and easy techniques that even a small child can manage with little effort and great success.

Don’t expect immediate results. In a time when meals can be ready in minutes, we’ve forgotten the value and lesson of delayed gratification. Some things, you see, are worth waiting for, and this homemade ketchup is one of them. Like most condiments, homemade ketchup originally derived the bulk of its complex flavors through the slow process of microbial action – fermentation a practice that is still used to age raw milk cheeses, cure meats and make yogurt. Fermentation used to be much more common and it wasn’t unusual for our great- great- grandparents to serve up meals in which every dish presented was bettered through the lost art of fermentation: cured meat and naturally aged cheeses on sourdough breads with brine-pickled relishes and lacto-fermented condiments served as an adjunct to improve digestion.

And our forebears were right: the process of fermentation and culturing foods not only improved their shelf-life, but dramatically increased the nutrition they gleaned from every bite. You see the traditional art of fermentation – the deliberate and calculated introduction of beneficial bacteria into food – increased each dish’s vitamin and enzyme content while preserving the food for long-term storage. Moreover, fermented condiments like this homemade ketchup and the other condiments and relishes you can learn to make in Nourished Kitchen’s newest cooking class Get Cultured! How to Ferment Anything provided a wide array of beneficial bacteria which help to populate the gut, working interactively with the immune system to keep pathogens at bay and make for resilient and vibrant health. It’s a beautiful art, fermentation.

Homemade Ketchup, an Old-world Recipe

homemade ketchup spiced with cloves and naturally fermented

Deeply robust with the rich-sweet flavor of concentrated tomato, this ketchup differs from the cloying sweet varieties you find in the grocery store. Allspice and cloves, traditional inclusions often omitted in most store-bought varieties, bring a level of depth that would be otherwise absent. Not a particularly quick food, this homemade ketchup is slowly ripened and aged over a period of three to five days as beneficial bacteria metabolize the food’s natural sugars, creating a condiment that is potently rich in food enzymes and probiotics. It’s a traditional process, lactofermentation, that increases the nutritional value of the foods we eat and love. This recipe and over 100 others are included in the latest of Nourished Kitchen’s online cooking class: Get Cultured! How to Ferment Anything.

Homemade Ketchup: Ingredients

2 cups tomato paste, preferably homemade
1/4 cup raw honey, maple syrup or whole unrefined cane sugar (see sources)
1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons fresh whey*, divided
2 tablespoons raw apple cider vinegar, plus extra for thinning the ketchup, if desired
1 teaspoon unrefined sea salt
1 teaspoon allspice
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves

Homemade Ketchup: Method

Spoon tomato paste into a large mixing bowl and fold in raw honey or other natural sweetener of choice.
Whisk in one-quarter cup fresh whey or vegetable starter culture into the sweetened tomato paste along with apple cider vinegar, sea salt, allspice and cloves. Continue whisking these ingredients together until the paste is smooth and uniform.
Spoon the homemade ketchup into a mason jar, top with remaining two tablespoons fresh whey or vegetable starter culture, cover loosely with a cloth or lid and allow the ketchup to sit at room temperature, undisturbed, for three to five days.
After three to five days, uncover the homemade ketchup and give it a thorough stir before transferring to the refrigerator. Naturally fermented homemade ketchup will keep for several months in the refrigerator.

TIME: 5 minutes (active), 3 to 5 days (fermentation)
YIELD: about 1 pint.
DAIRY-FREE? Omit fresh whey and substitute one packet vegetable starter culture (see sources) dissolved in one-quarter cup plus two tablespoons filtered water.

Love this naturally fermented homemade ketchup? Check out Get Cultured! How to Ferment Anything

This homemade, naturally fermented ketchup is just one dish in over 100 recipes included in Get Cultured! How to Ferment Anything, the latest online cooking class hosted at Nourished Kitchen. True to its name, this online series will teach you how to ferment and culture anything from dairy for cheese, butter and yogurt to coconut, probiotic tonics like beet kvass and kombucha, naturally cured meats, fermented legumes like natto and tempeh as well as traditional sourdough breads; moreover, we’ll cover relishes, chutneys, sauerkrauts, kimchi, brine pickles and more. The series features over 50 instructional videos, premium instructor support and regular conference calls so you can chat with other participants. Check out Get Cultured! now or learn about the individual installments.

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Recipe: Spiced Kombucha Vinaigrette

Jenny — Fri, 23 Apr 2010 03:23:44 +0000

Kombucha vinaigrette, may seem like an unusual take on the classic combination of olive oil and balsamic or red wine vinegar, but, when complemented by the unique flavors of clove and allspice it can become a nourishing, if unique, dressing for any salad. I find it pairs particularly well with the sweetness of beets, apples, pears and nuts. Reminiscent of apple cider vinegar in combination with club soda, kombucha offers a unique flavor that is growing in popularity as more and more natural foods enthusiasts learn to cherish the beverage – a sweetened tea that undergoes a unique fermentation process through the use of a mother or symbiotic colony of bacteria and yeast.

Brewing kombucha is easy and, in many ways, effortless as it requires little else but a brewing container, tea, sugar and a mother which you can find affordably online (see sources). Though its origins are largely clouded in mystery, kombucha, like many of our favorite fermented foods, enjoys a rich heritage in Russia and central Asia where it’s hailed as a health tonic. Simply combine three quarts brewed tea with one cup sugar until the sugar is fully dissolved and the sweetened tea has cooled to room temperature. Mix the sweetened tea with about one-quarter cup brewed kombucha tea and a kombucha mother in a clean container, cover and allow it to ferment for about a week when the kombucha mother splits and produces a second, thinner scoby. Bottle the kombucha and ferment it again, if desired. Ensure that the tea, mother and baby are free from mold and other signs of potential contamination.(...)
Click here to read the rest of Recipe: Spiced Kombucha Vinaigrette (545 words)

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Soaked Oatmeal Recipe

Jenny — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 16:15:35 +0000

Nearly every morning, my husband prepares a soaked oatmeal porridge. It’s evolved over the years, from an overly sweetened oatmeal to a version that’s sweetened only by dried fruit like raisins. It’s important to soak oatmeal prior to preparation. Doing so increases the digestibility of oats as it does and it enables the nutrients found in the grain to be better absorbed by your body. Oats, like all grains, contain phytic acid which can inhibit the proper absorption of minerals link zinc and iron.

We like to serve these oats with seeds, nuts, dried fruit and yogurt or diary kefir.

To prepare this soaked oatmeal recipe, you’ll need:

1 Cup Rolled Oats
1-2 Tablespoons Raw Cider Vinegar, Whey, Yogurt, Lemon Juice or Kefir
1 Cup Whole Milk
Pinch of Salt
2 Teaspoons Cinnamon
¼ Cup Nuts and Seeds
¼ Cup Raisins

Instructions for Preparing Soaked Oatmeal:

Soak rolled oats, seeds and nuts overnight in enough water to cover – adding lemon juice, kefir, whey, yogurt or cider vinegar to the water.
In the morning, drain oats and rinse them well.
Add milk to a pot and bring to a boil over medium-high heat.
Immediately turn down heat and add remaining ingredients.
Stir frequently and continue to simmer until oatmeal has thickened to your liking.
Serve with yogurt, kefir and natural sweetener of your choice.

Did you like this post? Please let me know by leaving a comment. Don't forget to find Nourished Kitchen on Facebook, Twitter and Flickr. © Jenny for Nourished Kitchen, 2009. | Permalink |