Mother of vinegar - also called Mycoderma aceti (a New Latin expression, from the Greek μὑκης (fungus) plus δἐρμα (skin), and the Latin aceti (of the acid) - is a substance composed of a form of cellulose and acetic acid bacteria that develops on fermenting alcoholic liquids, which turns alcohol into acetic acid with the help of oxygen from the air. It is added to wine, cider, or other alcoholic liquids to produce vinegar.
Mother of vinegar can also form in store-bought vinegar if there is some non-fermented sugar and/or alcohol contained in the vinegar. This is more common in unpasteurized vinegar. While not appetizing in appearance, mother of vinegar is completely harmless and the surrounding vinegar does not have to be discarded because of it. It can be filtered out using a coffee filter, used to start a bottle of vinegar, or simply left in and ignored.
Famous quotes containing the words mother of, mother and/or vinegar:
“Is not wounded vanity the mother of all tragedies?”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“The United States is just now the oldest country in the world, there always is an oldest country and she is it, it is she who is the mother of the twentieth century civilization. She began to feel herself as it just after the Civil War. And so it is a country the right age to have been born in and the wrong age to live in.”
—Gertrude Stein (1874–1946)
“My grandfather fell on Vinegar Hill,
And fighting was not his trade;
But his rusty pike’s in the cabin still,
With Hessian blood on the blade.””
—Joseph I. C. Clarke (1846–1925)