Apple Vinegar from Peels and Cores

Reader Contribution by Winifred Bird
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Back in November, at the height of apple season, I decided to try making vinegar as a way to use up all the apple cores and peels that were left over from making dried apples. I thought I’d wait to see how the vinegar turned out before sharing the recipe. It finally appears to be as close to vinegar as it’s going to get, so here’s the story.

The recipe I used was from an old cookbook my mother picked up at a garage sale years and years ago. Unfortunately, I’ve just got some photocopied recipes from it now, so I’m not sure what the title of the original book was. I think it was probably the White House Cookbook, circa the 1890s. We had a copy of that one along with a few others from the same era, and I spent many an hour as a little girl happily reading through recipes for horehound cough drops and walnut catsup, instructions for cleaning lace, and five-course breakfast menus. What a different world – but still one I could somehow imagine myself in. Occasionally, my mother and I would try out a recipe or two. We even found our favorite Christmas cake recipe – a dense mace-scented white cake studded with hazelnuts and raisins – in one of the old books (they really knew how to bake back then).

If you like making things from scratch (or just daydreaming about the days of woodstoves and petticoats) and ever chance upon one of these classic cookbooks, I highly recommend you snap it up. Since they were written before the days of electric and gas appliances, they’re full of great tips for modern-day homesteaders living a simple life off the grid. In case you can’t find a hard copy, have a look at Feeding America: The Historic Cookbook Project, a fantastic online archive of books from the Michigan State University library.  The White House Cookbook is fully viewable, along with 75 other interesting old treasures. Alternately, for those who don’t like reading online, try the centennial edition of the White House Cookbook, which was published in 1996. According to Amazon.com, it contains “[o]riginal 1890s recipes complete with updated low-fat, quick versions.” (That doesn’t sound like much of an improvement to me, but then again I’m still using a copy of the Joy of Cooking from 1974).

But back to the vinegar. Here’s the recipe, exactly as it appears in the old cookbook:

Apple Vinegar (economical and good)

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