The Vinegar Cupboard

Book excerpt: From food writer and historian Angela Clutton comes The Vinegar Cupboard, demonstrating the many great ways vinegars can be used to balance and enhance flavours, and enable modern cooks to make the most of this ancient ingredient. There aren't too many ingredients which manage to bring flavour and adaptability to recipes and are actively good for you, but vinegar manages it, and this must-have new book looks at how they have woven their way through culinary and medical history for thousands of years, and highlight the ways we can all benefit from vinegar in our diet. There is a growing interest in vinegars and a recognition of the role acidity plays in cooking, and within these page, Angela Clutton shows how much can be achieved using just red or white wine vinegar in your cooking, as well as exploring the vast array of vinegars available. The range of vinegars on the market are expanding rapidly, and you can easily find fruit, herb, sherry, cider, malt, rice, balsamic and many types of red and white wine vinegars (from rioja through to champagne) on your supermarket shelves. The Vinegar Cupboard encourages cooks to have an arsenal of as many varieties of vinegars as they can fit in their kitchen; while we don't expect everyone to have a vinegar cupboard, we'd like to think this book will encourage a vinegar shelf at least! Info-graphics and flavour wheels enhance the recipes, ensuring this is a usable and accessible book for all home cooks.