New range of vinegars enlivens taste buds

The name “Kemal Kükrer” adorns the glass jar. Here is a name that recalls brands from our childhood, a man who used natural methods and took five-and-a-half months to produce grape vinegar in the basement of his home in Odunpazarı in Eskişehir in 1915. But since the brand name and production rights to Kemal Kükrer’s vinegar were sold to the Gülel family in 1999, we turned to Sabri Gülel to ask our questions about these new vinegars. We asked him why the company had decided to ferment fruits such as pomegranate, cherry and persimmon for vinegar. One of the main motivations was the feeling that fruits other than grape would also do very well as vinegars. And then there is the above-mentioned fact that the younger generations these days are not so enamored of grape vinegar. Actually, according to Gülel, despite the fact that every wwell-stocked kitchen in Turkey has vinegar in it, it really isn’t a highly consumed product here. The current top vinegar-consuming countries are Italy, France and England, and it is also true that Arabs use vinegar in any slightly sour foods. What is clear is that this new round of vinegars will push not only young people but also older generations to use them.

 No matter what kind of vinegar you are talking about -- from grape to apple, pomegranate to persimmon -- the advantages of vinegar to one’s health are undisputed. Vinegar helps ease digestion, protects your gums from germs and even lowers cholesterol. But how do these new vinegars distinguish themselves in all this? Gülel notes that the newer vinegars have different aromas and different combinations of vitamins: “They also all have the maximum level of immune system strengthening characteristics in them.” This is a fact which is something everyone needs to remember at a time when people are doing everything they can to protect themselves from the flu. What’s more, Gülel reminds us just how well all these newer types of vinegars do on salads, particularly pomegranate, as well as with certain hot dishes.

Don’t believe every bottle that claims to be vinegar 

As we have become so accustomed to carefully scanning the ingredients in most of the products we buy these days, we should do the same for vinegar, and be prepared to send it back to the shelves if we find something we don’t like. We ask Gülel if vinegar is a product which needs additives, and he responds, “No, never.”
 He adds this important warning: “The products labeled as ‘vinegar’ are produced in three different ways. The first way uses acetic acid, and we call this fake vinegar, the under-the-stairs method. This sort of vinegar is harmful to the health. The second way is a sped-up fermentation process. Fruits can be fermented in just 16 hours thanks to certain bacteria. This, though, is a type of vinegar which has no benefits for our health. The third way is the slow and natural type of fermentation that was used by Kemal Kükrer. Under this method, only fruits are used, and then emerge as vinegar.”