VINEGAR 



History 



VINEGAK 



grown alone in the kharif season in garden lands to produce a green vegetable 

 French Beans. the so-called French bean of India and in the rabi season is grown like mug 



and udid, to a limited extent as a second crop in rice fields." 

 Pulse. The grain is eaten either as flour or split as ddl, and, as already mentioned, 



the green pods, especially of the long-podded form, are plucked while young and 

 Vegetable. eaten as a vegetable. As a curiosity it may be mentioned that the stalks and 



Dye. leaves are said to be employed in the preparation of a grean dye. [Cf. Church, 



Food-Grains o.f 2nd., 1886, 156 ; Pharmacog. Ind., 1890, i., 489 ; Basu, Agri. 



Lohardaga, 1890, pt. i., 68-9 ; Gollan, Ind. Veg. Garden, 1892, 127 ; Duncan, 



Dyes and Dyeing in Assam, 1896; Burma, Settl. Repts. Meiktila, 1900, 9 ; Mying- 



yan, 1901, 35 ; Mollison, Textbook Ind. Agri., 1901, iii., 88-9 ; Leather, Agri. 



Ledg., 1903, No. 7, 153, 191 ; Dept. Land. Rec. and Agri. Bombay Bull., 1904, 



No. 24, 4 ; Firminger, Man. Gard. Ind., 1904, 176 ; Roy, Crops of Beng., 1906, 



76-7 ; Repts. Dept. Land. Rec. and Agri. Bombay.] 



D.E.P., 

 i., 72-8. 

 Vinegar. 



Early Records. 



Oil. 



Salt. 



Standard 

 Authors. 



VINEGAR (ACETUM). Vinegar is an acid liquid, used largely 

 as a food auxiliary, as a preservative for certain articles of diet, as a 

 medicine, and lastly for certain industrial purposes. It is produced by (a) 

 what is known as acetous fermentation of a mixture of malted and unmalted 

 grain (forming malt vinegar), and (b) the oxidation of white or red wine 

 (yielding white or red wine vinegar). Chemically it is a dilute solution of 

 acetic acid with certain organic substances derived from, and peculiar to, 

 the material from which made. It is, in other words, a weak solution of 

 acetic acid, produced by the fermentative action of a vegetable organism 

 (Mycoderma aceti), the process of transference being called acetous 

 fermentation. 



History. Mr. F. W. Thomas informs me that sukta is the most general 

 Sanskrit name for the true or fermented liquor. This occurs in the Brdh- 

 manas, Susruta and elsewhere. Sauktika is an adjective form of the word 

 met with in Charaka (1st century A.D.). It denotes very possibly the vinegar 

 prepared from a sweet liquid, such as sugar-cane juice, palm-juice, etc. 

 But malted vinegar seems also to have been understood, and is possibly 

 denoted by the word kdnjika (sour or fermented), rice gruel (see the account 

 under Burma, p. 1111). The BhdvaprdJcdsd defines vinegar as a substance 

 fermented from bulbs, roots, and fruits with oil and salt, and this use of oil 

 and salt will be found frequently alluded to. The Rdjanirghanta alludes 

 to the employment of grain in the production of cukra. Lastly, cukra or 

 cukraka is applied to sour substances (such as the fruits of the tamarind 

 and the sorrel) which are used as substitutes for vinegar. These occur in 

 Susruta, Harivamsa, etc. 



Vinegar is known all over India by its Hindustani name sirka. In 

 the provinces the following vernacular names are given to it : kadi 

 in Tamil ; pulla nilla in Telegu ; chuka in Malayan ; and pon-ye in 

 Burmese. While thus doubtless a substance of universal knowledge 

 to-day and one which bears a fairly ancient record, it is significant 

 that most works on India, both ancient and modern, have remarkably 

 little to say about it. Writers on Materia Medica, as well as most of the 

 standard authors on travel, etc., in India, are silent regarding vinegar. 

 Even the Institutes of Manu makes apparently no reference to it. With 

 the Muhammadans, however, vinegar always has been a more important 

 dietetic luxury than with the Hindus, and to this circumstance perhaps 

 is due the scant attention paid to it by early writers. It is, however, 

 alluded to by Thevenot (Travels in Levant, Indostan, etc., 1687, pt. iii., 

 16) and one or two other European travellers. 



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