Balsamic this, balsamic that, so much hooey!

What is it with balsamic vinegar? It shows up in everything. A little saucer with a splash of black pungent balsamic vinegar under a quarter cup of olive oil is the first thing set on the table and unless you are lucky some sort of balsamic sorbet will be the last thing set before you. What is it? It is a long time and esteemed local specialty of Modena Italy. Until it became the vinegar to end all vinegar's, it was a thick sweet caramelized long aged product that played a role in Italian cooking very much like Worcestershire Sauce played in American cooking. It added a savory bass note to dishes and gravies, a few drops went into a Caesar Salad, a few more into a Bloody Mary.

Now it appears in everything and anything. A while back it was kiwi fruit that showed up in all the expected places and in the damnedest places too. Balsamic vinegar has some great uses, but it is not the elixir of love.

Lets talk about vinegar's. There are lots and lots of them and unlike Balsamic most of them are great in salads and other things too. To begin there is red wine vinegar and its twin, white wine vinegar. These are meant to dress salads. The more rustic and Mediterranean, the more it cries out for a good red wine vinegar. The more refined and delicate salads like Bibb or Boston lettuce call for a more refined white wine vinegar. The classic french dressing calls for red wine and olive oil with a bit of salt and pepper and a teaspoon of dry mustard and sweet paprika. A more elegant Parisian Dressing calls for white wine vinegar and olive oil salt pepper and a healthy spoon of smooth Dijon mustard to give tang and emulsify the dressing. Seafood salads call for a tarragon white wine vinegar. Other salads need the robust dark richness of a Sherry Vinegar from Spain, something that is used more in main dishes than on salads where it tends to overwhelm.

There are other vinegar's, for example apple cider vinegar, an amber acid with a hint of apple sweetness, malt vinegar used mainly in the British Isles where its rich sharpness and hint of malt sugar gives a robust bite. In Asia rice vinegar's are the staple, they combine a sharpness with a mild slight sweetness. They are available in their natural state or seasoned and slightly sweetened. These seasoned rice vinegar's are mild enough to dress a salad alone, no oil need which is very useful if you are watching calories.

The one fine vinegar that has fallen out of favor and I regret is tarragon vinegar. In the USA it is usually made with apple cider vinegar, which gives an earth Midwestern flavor. The best Tarragon vinegar's from France and Italy are white wine vinegar's that have a large sprig of tarragon in the bottle to infuse the musky herbal flavor. The one place they are absolutely and vitally necessary is in seafood salads, especially calamari or octopus salads. This is the perfect herb to bring out the subtle briny essence of these particularly ugly but wonderful tasting creatures.