When you wish to ferment a sweet liquid, such as grape juice, malted barley or corn mash, you need to maintain a low oxygen, low temperature environment, so that the yeast can convert sugars into alcohol without interference. If too much oxygen gets into your fermenting liquid or if the temperature gets too high, there are bacteria that live on the oxygen molecules that will overwhelm the yeast and create amino acids that result in a high concentration of acetic acid. We know the resulting product as vinegar.
The word vinegar comes to us through the French and means “sour wine” and like many of our greatest discoveries through history, it was most likely developed by accident when somebody screwed up their wine making. Not being in a position to discard the sour wine, the poor soul looked around hoping to find some kind of use for this sour and acidic disaster before his wife found out what he had done. Vinegar is certainly an acquired taste, so drinking it was probably not the first thing he came up with.
Most likely what he came up with, was to use it as a cleaner, it works very effectively on many types of surfaces and because it worked so well, he insisted to his wife that he made it on purpose; just trying to be helpful, know how hard you work and all that. No need to thank me!
Vinegar dates back at least 5000 years and as its uses expanded it was probably decided that grapes and wine were too important to use for vinegar production, so the Babylonians started making it from dates, figs or beer. Vinegar can be made from many sweet liquids and here in the United States we are partial to vinegar made from apple cider. After the bacteria have done their work they tend to congregate and from a slimy mass that has come to be known as the “mother”. This slime is typically removed and used as seed stock for the next batch.
Just like herbs, vinegar has been used as medicine, and as a way to mask offensive tastes and odors. Just like herbs, its first culinary use was most likely to mask the unpleasant taste of meats that had begun to turn. It does this much more effectively than herbs and thus was born the still used and beloved technique of saucing meats for improved taste and mouth feel.
Most modern vinegars intended for human consumption have about 4 to 8 percent acetic acid by volume resulting in a pH of around 2.5 to 3 making them just slightly less acidic than lemons. It is this acidity that makes vinegar taste sour as opposed to foods classified as alkaline, which tend to taste bitter. (think coffee).
Cooking is about the balance of flavors, so sour foods like vinegar tend to work well with the addition of sweetness. This balance can be achieved by using ratios such as the ratio in vinaigrette of three parts oil to one-part vinegar which can then be sweetened to personal taste. The sour quality of vinegar may also explain why one of its earliest uses was to apply it to meat, not only to mask off flavors, but because it provides excellent balance to the sweetness of fresh meats.
The United States Senate has been called the greatest deliberative body in the world. My guess is, it is called this by the career politicians that inhabit its chairs as opposed to the rest of us, but be that as is may, under no objective criteria, could it be called that today. Instead it seems to be the place where any idea that might promote social evolution goes to die. Nothing significant seems to happen there but finger pointing, blaming and airing of grievance.
After the Trump tax cuts for the rich, it seemed to me the only thing they did was confirm judges. We now have a Supreme Court Justice that declared during his confirmation hearing: “I like beer.” Really; this is the best we can do with Mitch in charge?
No issue illustrates our political dysfunction any clearer than that of mass shootings. The have become a regular occurrence in our country, with two happening just last week, claiming 18 lives. The pattern has become familiar and predictable. We get an alert on our phone about reports of an active shooter in Anytown USA. Media scrambles to the scene and start to provide information that usually ends up being speculative at best. Usually they have retired law enforcement people, describing what the police are or should be doing.
Hours after the threat has been neutralized, police give an update, beginning with a statement on how senseless and tragic this is. It is a sad day for our community and our thoughts and prayers are with the victims and their families. We will not rest until justice is done. The local politicians then repeat the sad remarks along with a declaration that this is not who we are, but we will overcome this and be stronger.
Next comes the time for our so-called national leaders to weigh in and this is where my disgust boils over. They all offer their condolences and their thoughts and their prayers, but then, unable to overcome their base character, swerve into political theatre. The Dems start talking about sensible gun laws, background checks, waiting periods, gun show loopholes, magazine capacity, and banning semi-automatic rifles, on and on and on.
The Repubs counter that none of these things would prevent these murders. That they are nothing but a radical left-wing attempt to outlaw and confiscate all guns. A shameful use of a tragedy for political purposes. A clear infringement on the second amendment rights of law-abiding Americans. The first step on a slippery slope that places all our rights into serious jeopardy. They forcefully declare that this is not a gun problem, this is a mental health problem. But I can’t recall any significant Republican initiative on mental health during the last administration, much less any significant increase in funding for mental health issues.
And just like that, we move on. No meaningful change.
Lane Change: Funny how the party that is so passionate about protecting constitutional rights is the same one sprinting to restrict voting access nationwide, which is also a constitutional right, for millions of Americans. Insert nausea here.
The predictable result of this ridiculous paralysis is that nothing ever changes, nothing except the location of the next mass killing.
Whether this is a gun problem or a mental health problem is above the pay grade of this old vinaigrette maker, but the result of this inaction is clear. Inaction is a form of action, it is acceptance of the status quo.
The cold, hard and harsh reality is that as a people we have made the conscious decision, that these mass killings are simply part of the price we are willing to pay for unrestricted access to guns. If we really wanted to stop this we would do something, anything, even if it didn’t work, at least we could declare we are trying, as it stands now we do nothing and doing nothing means we accept mass killings as just part of living in the United States. Is this really the cost of freedom? I hope not.
It seems like a small ask that we have a society where my kids can go the grocery store to buy some vinegar without worrying about a crazy person with a semi-automatic rifle. Or a world in which my wife can get a massage without getting blasted by armor piercing bullets.
We are about to have permit-less carry in this state, and we hear over and over again that a good guy with a gun is the best way to stop a bad guy with a gun, but while I am choosing my vinegar at the grocery store how can I tell if the guy with the gun is a good guy or a bad guy until he pulls the trigger?
As long as we have entrenched career politicians that won’t even have a serious discussion about mass killings why should we expect anything of a positive substance from them. For the families involved in these insane tragedies, there can be no more important issue, but still we do nothing. We are all the grim reaper.
On this issue, like many others, career politicians have devolved into a bacteria infested mass of slime. But not one that we should use to seed the next generation of leaders; fermentation into a replication of what we have now cannot be an option. The senate is no longer the world’s greatest deliberative body but it may be the world’s greatest dispensary of “sour wine.” Our current crop of leaders do what they do best, nothing, to solve the problem of mass shooting, and this leaves a sour taste in the mouth and there is no ratio of insincere sweetness that can mask it.
R.I.P.T.N.L.J 8119
Hear! Hear!