These Fancy Vinegars Are the Ones to Prioritize in Your Pantry
Photograph: Ted Cavanaugh for Bloomberg Businessweek
If there’s one ingredient that’s key to the current food trends—from pickling to ketchup to mayonnaise—it’s vinegar. Over the next three years, vinegar sales are forecast to rise more than 6 percent worldwide. Credit everything from diets that have caused a run on cider vinegar to America’s increasingly adventurous taste for cuisines such as Korean and all the intense, pucker-inducing, fermented kimchee that comes with it.
A handful of books is also addressing the country’s expanding taste for sour flavors. Acid Trip: Travels in the World of Vinegar, by Michael Harlan Turkell (Abrams), offers recipes from around the world such as Italian pancetta and beef tartare from Seattle chef Renee Erickson. Turkell includes tips for do-it-yourselfers on how to make their own vinegar.