Vinegar without spending the wine; Iberian oil

And the vinegar itself is not to be neglected. Vinegar is multiplied if, having boiled beet, you throw into the chous of water four drachmas of Cretan licorice and, having boiled it, you add one drachma of Greek nitre; with this preparation is mixed, to one measure of vinegar, double the water. Every vinegar is intensified when five drachmas of pepper, and of juniper equally, are mixed into the metretes.

The hope that concerns only the spoilage of wine is slow and is not a farmer's prayer; and I know vinegar forced into speed by all kinds of practices, the wine already having turned and changed for the worse. Some throw in burnt barley, some a potsherd that has been fired, and others iron. Honey is often thrown in too. I, however, will make vinegar self-grown and sweet, bringing use and pleasure, without the loss of the wine. For the squeezed grape-stone is enough: together with the marc it is soaked into water, so that the water takes the quality of must; then, thrown into a cauldron, it is fired underneath and boiled to the half, and having cooled it is transferred into another vessel. It changes, then, as mixed with water, but remains sweet as must boiled down.

Vinegar could also come without a grape. Pitch last year's full pine-cones with wet pitch and burn them round until the pitch is burnt off; then honey them all with a feather. Let there be water in a large vessel, and the cones about ten to each chous of water; throwing these into the wet, boil as much as to warm; let the vessel be short by cotylae — the numeral is blank in the lock. Having muzzled it all round, you will leave it in the sun three days; then having uncovered it, take off as much of the vinegar as you want and throw on the equal of water. Thus for a long time you will have vinegar unfailing.

One must be eager about the oil too. The Iberian somehow thus: a handful of wild-olive leaves, four drachmas of dry fenugreek, one of wormwood, and two drachmas of roasted lees which the Romans call "fecula." Chop all and make a handful-mass, then bind it in a rag, let it down into the jar, and after nine days draw it off for use. And you would have Istrian too: chop green leaves of bitter almonds, make a mass, throw it into the vessel, stir it, and let it settle. Mastic-oil is prepared thus: the ripe fruit of the mastic, thrown into a mortar, is chopped with a wooden pestle.