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Primrose Vinegar

A fermented vinegar made from primroses, water, brown sugar, and yeast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Primrose Vinegar

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sweet liquid

  1. Boil the water and brown sugar together for 10 minutes.

  2. Skim off any scum that forms.

  3. Pour the hot mixture over the primroses.

Ferment and store

  1. Before it cools completely, add a little fresh yeast.

  2. Let it work in a warm place overnight.

  3. Transfer to a barrel in the kitchen and close when fermentation is complete.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

What each ingredient does

Primroses
Contribute the flowers' delicate floral aroma and flavour to the finished vinegar.
Brown sugar
Supplies the sugar that the yeast ferments into alcohol, the first step toward vinegar.
Fresh yeast
Starts fermentation by converting the sugars into alcohol.

The step that matters

Add the yeast before the mixture cools completely. Yeast is killed by very high heat, so the liquid must be cool enough to be safe for it, yet still warm enough for the yeast to become active and start fermenting well.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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