Springfield Cottage: Four Thieves Vinegar

Wednesday, 21 November 2012

Four Thieves Vinegar

Now here's something a little out of the ordinary......

The wonderful Rhonda-Jean at 'Down-to-Earth' is talking today about how easy it is to dry and/or freeze herbs. She gives a lovely recipe for Mint Sauce (http://down---to---earth.blogspot.co.uk) which makes my mouth water for a lovely roast lamb or some succulent lamb chops.

Herbs are really easy to grow, especially in pots and every cook should have at least parsley, rosemary, sage, mint and my favourite, basil. Brushing past these pots on a warm summer evening (if we ever have any!!!) releases the most wonderful fragrance and you can imagine yourself anywhere from a dusty Greek hillside to a noisy, vibrant Italian city.

A few months ago I clipped a newspaper article about greener cleaning using herbs. Always on the lookout for ways to banish harmful chemicals from my home, one of the recipes caught my eye: Four Thieves Vinegar.

The story goes that a group of thieves during a European plague outbreak were robbing the dead or the sick. When they were caught, they offered to exchange their secret recipe, which had allowed them to commit the robberies without catching the disease, in exchange for leniency.

Another version says that the thieves had already been caught before the outbreak and their sentence had been to bury dead plague victims; to survive this punishment, they created the vinegar. The city in which this happened is usually said to be Marseille or Toulouse and the time period can be given as anywhere between the 14th and 18th century depending on the storyteller.

I decided to make Four Thieves Vinegar - and what a success it has been. I tend to use it for cleaning work surfaces and chopping boards but internet searching says it can also be used, diluted, as a face cleanser or a hair tonic. Given the antiseptic properties of many herbs I can see it being used for many more things than just this....

Here's how I made mine......