Fruit vinegars were all the rage in the 1980s, and from today’s recipe it seems they may have been popular in the 1780s too!
Maybe it’s time for a revival? Here’s a Georgian recipe for homemade gooseberry vinegar from The Cookbook of Unknown Ladies:
Recipe for preparing a gooseberry vinegar, from The Cookbook of Unknown Ladies.
The Receipt to Make Gooseberry Vinegar
To every gallon of colde water put six pounds of ripe gooseberries. Bruise these in a floure mortarr with a wooden pestle. Then pour the water on them and stir them. Then put them in to a rundlet or [another] cleane vessel. Let the vessel stan in a warm place near a kitchen fire, or in the sun, if hot, till the liquor ferments and the fruit all rise to the top, which it will do in aboute a fortnight. Then draw off the liquor and strain the berries from it very clean and put the liquor into the same cask. Add to every gallon of it one pound of brown sugar, which will make it ferment a second time, and when you see it hath done working, stop the vessel close. It will be fit for use in six months, but it must be kept in a warm place near a fire, which will add to it goodnese and ripen it the sooner. The crystal gooseberries is the best and gives it the best colour, but any gooseberries will make it good for common uses, but be sure to use none for pickles but that made of the crystal gooseberries.
In the early nineteenth century gooseberry vinegar was frequently used with various sodas to raise gingerbread. See this 1835 recipe on this site – http://foodhistorjottings.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/block-gingerbread.html