Vinegars The Ancestors Brought with Them: Enslavement Black Medicine Rooted in African Memory

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I Always Wonder What They Called It Before They Called It Vinegar.

This summer series is going to be on vinegars. I haven't written anything herbal or Plantcestors-related in a while, but I've been drawn to do so. Although I take the month of July off, I have scheduled some articles to drop on vinegars that I hope you all enjoy.

I have always wondered what they called it before it was called vinegar. If you know, please share. I have read many herbal books, and I haven't seen the prefix, especially in many African terms. I didn't want to ChatGPT it or Google it either.

With all this modernity, I have been craving what I need from books, encyclopedias (I have been contemplating buying a set), and writings like this one on Substack. I know Substack is part of modernity, so please don't come for me. However, it feels slightly different from other forms of social media for me. And I am very aware it's a form of social media.

So, if you know any good African or Black authored books on vinegar, bitters, or sours, please share. I am amazed that the Ancestors knew what sour like vinegar could do long before the French-derived word "vinegar" was coined. The word we use in English comes from the old French vyn egre, which comes from the Latin word vinum acer, which basically means sour wine. In modern French, the word for "wine" is vin, and the word for "sour" is aigre.

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When I was making some digestive bitters vinegar for my low stomach acid one day, I got to thinking about how vinegar has been around for a long damn time. You see it in the Bible. And I started to think about the human mind and how it is soooo amazing that the Ancestors of that time found things to do when fruit or wine turned sour. Some research says it was discovered by accident. Whether by accident or deliberate experiment, vinegar is a medicine in our bones.

Hopefully, for those who can ingest vinegar, you have some in your medicine cabinet. For me, vinegar is that old medicine that connects you to the ancient past. When you make vinegar, you're not just making medicine; you're making a connection to Ancestral memory in a bottle. Vinegar as a medicine is one of the many things that our Ancestors brought with them when they were stolen or trafficked from their homelands.

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I Do Not Believe Vinegar Origins Solely To Be Perfected By The Europeans

Many herbal books say that vinegar goes back to Babylonian or Roman times. They conveniently leave other countries and Africans out of the conversation, excluding the people of many different cultures and African nations who have been fermenting palm sap, sipping fruit wine, and relaxing with honey beer throughout various parts of Africa. They were making vinegars as medicine. When they leave the second-largest continent of Africa out of conversations, I feel like they want us to believe everything was discovered somewhere else besides Africa; maybe that's just me and my conspiracy theories.

Some writings show that the Phoenician Africans used fermented wines and vinegar to help with their food preservation, cooking, and medicine. The texts on viticulture and preservation using vinegar from these Africans were quoted by Roman writers, such as Pliny the Elder, in his "Natural History," Book 14, where he writes about the vinegars, vineyards, and wines of Northern Africa. Our amazing scholarly, engineering Ancestors of those days had the knowledge and technology to make bitter and sour tonics for medicine, first aid, and beverages to aid digestion, keep meat from rotting, and scrub out unbalanced, spiritual, funky energy. I am grateful that some of the wisdom survived the Middle Passage ships and triangular enslavement trade and is still in use in many of our Black kitchens and diaspora today.

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Vinegar Was Medicine And Survival

What they called "vinegar," whether it came from spoiled fruits, beer, moonshine, palm wine, or fermented grain, was one of the many things that helped us Black folk survive enslavement. Many enslaved people didn't have doctors they could trust, and they didn't have agency over their bodies. Many times, medical reports went directly to the enslavers with no regard for the enslaved. So, our Ancestors used what they had and had their own community doctors. One of the things our people used was homemade vinegars as a way to have agency and control over their care, as well as their family's health. Vinegars are served both as a flavor and as a pharmaceutical. If you have ever tasted Carolina BBQ, you know what I mean. Shoutout to all the Ancestral prayers for the preservation of our culture.

My Family Gullah Geechee Vinegar Stories

On the Sea Islands, where my family is from, and in the Low Country, my Grandmothers and aunts all had their vinegar stories. One of my Aunties, Ms. Martha, who was actually one of my Great Aunts best friends (but you know how we do, she Auntie), had some of the best BBQ I have ever tasted Chile people would ask her all the time about her recipe she would always say it has been in my family for decades all you getting it's in "da vinega," and she would wink. Folks' vinegar in BBQ and other recipes, knowledge for Black Southern folks gets passed down like scripture. In my Grandmother's Brooklyn apartment, you could find muscadine grape vinegar brewing in the corner under a cloth in her very warm kitchen (we didn't have AC growing up). When she was homesick and missing fresh water, she would cook, brew, and make things that reminded her of home. She never threw away apple peels and kept a little corn liquor to make her version of "Gullah Hot Toddy" when we got a little inkling of being sick as kids. From figs, blackberries, to sassafras root, I have seen all turned into vinegars or sour wine for medicine, cooking, and good ol' fashioned rhutwork.

My Grandma and Aunties always pulled medicine out of what they had, from scraps to fallen, bruised fruit. I snuck a little taste as a kid from my cousin Joseph, who would always steal plenty. I now admire my Grandma's ways. Nothing was wasted, old bread; we got bread pudding. Fruit peels got made into vinegars, and fruit that was bruised up to bad got made into preserves or jams. Everything was sacred, whether it got made into a sour or a sweet.

Our Ancestors understood cycles more than we do. I think maybe it was living so close to nature and spending so much time outdoors, but there was an underlying sense that sour bitters are a necessary part of the cycles of life. Everything can't be sweet all the time. Vinegars, in all of their essences, are proof that things that spoil can actually be sacred, too.

In A World That Promotes Indulgence Of Sweetness, A Lil" Sour Ain't A Thing Bad

African Vinegar Practices I Want To Honor That Fascinate Me.

West Africa: Palm wine vinegar is a common medicine. In certain communities, it is used for rituals. I love the flavor, but it is less acidic and sweeter than apple cider vinegar. Palm wine vinegar is used for various medicinal purposes in West Africa, ranging from fevers to skin problems, and is considered a sacred food for certain spirits.

East Africa: I heard and tasted T'ej, a honey wine, but I have not had the pleasure of drinking it in Ethiopia. I also read that it's popular in Eritrea. I have only had the pleasure of tasting the one they sell at Total Wine. What I would love to taste one day is the ones that turn into honey vinegar, but those are usually made in small batches for home consumption. It is a time-consuming process, but I bet your bottom dollar that medicine is so good.

North Africa: Date vinegar is said to be one of the oldest vinegars, and it shows up in recipes and medicine books of North Africa and the Middle East going back thousands of years. It is used in culinary applications, digestive health, labor pain relief, skin health as a toner, and more. I have only had some from a local vinegar shop here in North Georgia that was said to be from North Africa, but it is one I want to taste in its homeland as well.

South Africa: I want to try vinegar made from marula fruits, and some research shows that even the fermented roots were used; this vinegar is known to have high antioxidant properties and can be rich in phenolic compounds. The marula fruit is used for rituals, healing, and ceremonies. Reading about how they use a lot of fruit and even its roots reminded me of my grandmother and how she never let things go to waste. And I see the African ways of no to little waste show up in how Black folks use as much of the plant as they can for medicine, ritual, ceremonies to clean their homes, reviving altars, and keep their children to get them 100% attendance awards for school and Sunday school.

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Vinegar is more than a seasoning. It is spiritual, keeping stuff from spoiling, a cleaning agent, how my great-grandmother made pickles to last them through the winters when things got scarce, how they preserved what they had to keep them alive and well, and for other generations to come forth and flourish.

I am thankful for the vinegar that has helped me with sore throats and colds, for cleaning the house spiritually, and for keeping certain spiritual energies at bay, from breaking up sour situations and closing some mouths. Most of all, I am thankful for being a connector to preserve memories. One of the most beautiful things about Low Country Hoodoo and Rhutwork is that some of your best recipes and medicines you will get didn't get written down; they get remembered in dreams and visions.

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I probably would keep old Vingear bottles if I could. I like the labels,

But it’s taboo for me to keep empty jars and bottles

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Resources And Books

Vinegar from The World by Lisa Solieri, Paolo, published by FAO/Springer

The Wines of West Africa: History, Technology and Tasting Notes by Roger G. Noll

African American Herbalism: A Practical Guide to Healing Plants and Folk Traditions by Lucretia VanDyke (2022)

And my Grandma ‘Big Joe”, everyone called her. May she rest well.

And Mrs. Martha, thank you for all the Carolina BBQ and vinegar-based medicine of my childhood and teen years. May you rest well.