Survey of Vinegar Recipes
Scroll 8 in Qimin Yaoshu has twenty-three vinegar recipes in it. I've now translated them all, and rather than posting them fully, I thought I'd offer a summary, and a few of them in particular. I haven't (successfully, ahem) made any of these yet, and when I do I'll post separately about them, with the full recipe included. Science and Civilisation in China notes that vinegar was a relatively late addition to Chinese cooking, replacing the use of Prunus mume (a kind of apricot) as a souring agent in the Spring and Autumn period (771-476 BCE). Ingredients Most of these are millet vinegars, produced like a millet wine. But they also don't all use yeast cakes. Most are using what I'm translating as "wheat grains" (麥䴷), which are also called "yellow steam" (黃蒸). To make this: 作黃蒸法：To Make Yellow Steam 〈六、七月中，取生小麥，細磨之。 In the middle of the sixth or seventh months, take fresh wheat, and finely grind it. 以水溲而蒸之，氣餾好熟，便下之，...