Elina + Pascal at Class Table

I use a lot of vinegar.  In particular aged red wine vinegar. I love its layered, complex, tart, winey flavor.  If you’ve had my Forte Dressing during the Angeli years you understand why. It used to be fairly easy to find good vinegar even though you have to pay a bit more since all of the good stuff seems to be imported from France, especially the barrel aged vinegars.   When people ask why my dressings taste so good I always say it’s the vinegar.  It makes a huge difference.  For years I’ve used the Vilux brand. But I always wondered if I made my own would it be even better?

So when Los Angeles Magazine Senior Editor Elina Shatkin told me she wanted to learn how to make vinegar I finally took the cue and asked for a vinegar mentor on Facebook.  Lots of talented folks responded but I was most intrigued to meet Pascal Baudar.  Every chef in Los Angeles who talks about using foraged materials mentions Pascal as a teacher/supplier.  I knew that he and his partner Mia Wasilevich lead hikes, do classes and create dinners that focus on capturing the flavor of the forests and deserts of California.  So I took Pascal up on his offer.  Which is how Elina and I ended up in Shadow Hills in their sunny great room – kitchen surrounded by bottles and jars filled with flavor possibilities.  The actual vinegar lesson took just a few minutes.  The introduction to their life of foraging alchemy? Well that went on for a few fascinating hours.

PROCESS:  The key to the process is finding someone who will share their live vinegar and  “mother” with you.  This is a photo of vinegar alive with acetic bacteria.  What you see floating in the liquid are two mothers, the older one that is ready to be thrown away is on the bottom.  The healthy mother that Pascal shared with us is thicker and is floating on top.

Elina brought her own jug of leftover organic wine.  I used the Three Buck Chuck that Pascal provided.  Pascal recommends using organic wine or Charles Shaw which he contends strangely enough always turns into vinegar, no problem.  (Two weeks in, my jar already has a new mother forming.)

So first Pascal cut up the “mother”, a very weird organ looking like thing that is made up of acetic bacteria and cellulose.

Very weird indeed

  He put a small piece in each of our jars.

mother, divided

He then poured some of the “live” vinegar that was hosting the mother into our jars, in an amount approximately 1/3 what the whole would be.

Adding “live” vinegar to the mother

Then we made a mixture of 25% water and 75% wine and poured that into the jar with the mother and live vinegar until it was topped up.  After that we used the jar band to keep a piece of protective yet breathable mesh in place.  You can also use a piece of paper towel. You just need to prick some holes in the towel with a sharp needle.

The next and final step is to find a warm, dark place to store the vinegar.  Since I don’t care if my kitchen smells like vinegar I put it on a shelf in my open pantry.  You could put it in a well ventilated closet or a laundry room.  The key is that the vinegar be in the dark.  In another couple of weeks when my mother is more developed I’m going to pour my now “live” vinegar into a larger vessel and start again so I can get a good quantity going.  I might even spring for one of the adorable little oak vinegar barrels you can find online.

I overexposed the pic so you can see the new mother floating on top