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Grape syrup is a condiment made with concentrated grape juice. It is thick and sweet because of its high ratio of sugar to water. Grape syrup is made by boiling grapes, removing their skins, and squeezing them through a sieve to extract the juice. Like other , a common use of grape syrup is as a topping to sweet cakes, such as or .
It is found in multiple Balkan cuisine, Middle East and Caucasian cuisines, under a variety of names.
In modern times, petimezi is the common name for Greek cuisine grape syrup. The word comes from the Persian language petmez (پتمز), which usually refers to grape syrup, but is also used to refer to mulberry syrup, which is especially popular in Armenia, and other fruit syrups.Francis Johnson9780710305874 ISBN 9780710305874 In Turkey, it is known as pekmez, a word record in the 1073 dictionary Dīwān Lughāt al-Turk by Mahmud al-Kashgari. TDK Online - Pekmez entry In Armenia, Iran, Azerbaijan and more West Asian countries, this grape syrup is known as doshab. Persians also call it shir-e angoor.
Vincotto (not to be confused with vino cotto) is the southern Italian term for grape syrup. It is made only from cooked wine grape must (mosto cotto), with no fermentation involved. There is no alcohol or vinegar content, and no additives, preservatives or sweeteners are added. It is both a condiment and ingredient used in either sweet or savory dishes.
Grape syrup was known by different names in Ancient Roman cuisine depending on the boiling procedure. Defrutum, carenum, and sapa were reductions of must. They were made by boiling down grape juice or must in large kettles until it had been reduced to two-thirds of the original volume, carenum; half the original volume, defrutum; or one-third, sapa. The Greek name for this variant of grape syrup was siraion (σίραιον). The Online Liddell-Scott-Jones Greek-English Lexicon s.v.
The main culinary use of defrutum was to help preserve and sweeten wine, but it was also added to fruit and meat dishes as a sweetening and souring agent and even given to food animals such as and suckling to improve the taste of their flesh. Defrutum was mixed with garum to make the popular condiment oenogarum. Quince and melon were preserved in defrutum and honey through the winter, and some Roman women used defrutum or sapa as a Cosmetics. Defrutum was often used as a food preservative in provisions for Roman troops.
There is some confusion as the amount of reduction for sapa and defrutum. As James Grout explains in its Encyclopedia Romana, authors informed different reductions, as follows:
The elder Cato, Columella, and Pliny all describe how unfermented grape juice (mustum, must) was boiled to concentrate its natural sugars. "A product of art, not of nature," the must was reduced to one half (defrutum) or even one third its volume (sapa) (Pliny, XIV.80), although the terms are not always consistent. Columella identifies defrutum as "must of the sweetest possible flavour" that has been boiled down to a third of its volume (XXI.1).Defrutum is mentioned in almost all Roman books dealing with cooking or household management. Pliny the Elder recommended that defrutum only be boiled at the time of the new moon, while Cato the Censor suggested that only the sweetest possible defrutum should be used.(2025). 9780674993983, Harvard University Press. ISBN 9780674993983Isidore of Seville, writing in the seventh century AD, says that it is sapa that has been reduced by a third but goes on to imagine that defrutum is so called because it has been cheated or defrauded (defrudare) (Etymologies, XX.3.15). Varro reverses Pliny's proportions altogether (quoted in Nonius Marcellus, De Conpendiosa Doctrina, XVIII.551M).
In ancient Rome, grape syrup was often boiled in lead pots, which sweetened the syrup through the leaching of the sweet-tasting chemical compound lead acetate into the syrup. Incidentally, this is thought to have caused lead poisoning for Romans consuming the syrup. A 2009 History Channel documentary produced a batch of historically accurate defrutum in lead-lined vessels and tested the liquid, finding a lead level of 29,000 parts per billion (ppb), which is 2,900 times higher than contemporary American drinking water limit of 10 ppb. These levels are easily high enough to cause either acute lead toxicity if consumed in large amounts or chronic lead poisoning when consumed in smaller quantities over a longer period of time (as defrutum was typically used).
However, the use of leaden cookware, though popular, was not the general standard of use. Copper cookware was used far more generally and no indication exists as to how often sapa was added or in what quantity. There is not, however, scholarly agreement on the circumstances and quantity of lead in these ancient Roman condiments. For instance, the original research was done by Jerome Nriagu, but was criticized by John Scarborough, a pharmacologist and classicist, who characterized Nriagu's research as "so full of false evidence, miscitations, typographical errors, and a blatant flippancy regarding primary sources that the reader cannot trust the basic arguments."
Sharia increased the prevalence of grape syrup in the region due to the Khamr, a practice that was strictly enforced during the Mamluk Sultanate, when grape syrup became a common wine substitute among Muslims. Rabbi Joseph Tov Elem, who lived in Jerusalem around 1370, proposed that the honey mentioned in the Bible is actually grape syrup. Obadiah of Bertinoro also mentioned grape syrup among various types of honey sold in Jerusalem, and Meshullam of Volterra described it as "hard as a rock and very fine." Baalbek, in modern Lebanon, was particularly renowned for its dibs production, and Ibn Battuta detailed the production process, noting the use of a type of soil to harden the syrup so that it remained intact even if the container broke. In the 15th century, hashish users mixed it with dibs to mitigate its effects. Rabbis such as Nissim of Gerona and Obadish of Bertinoro discussed its kashrut. In the early Ottoman Empire period, there was sometimes a special tax on raisins and dibs. In the 19th century, Hebron exported significant quantities of grape syrup to Egypt, as documented by Samson Bloch and Samuel David Luzzatto.
Fruits and vegetables that have been candied by boiling in petimezi (epsima) are called retselia.
From late August until the beginning of December, many Greek bakeries make and sell dark crunchy and fragrant petimezi cookies, moustokoúloura (μουστοκούλουρα).
Petimezopita (πετιμεζόπιτα) is a spiced cake with petimezi.
Суджух (шароц) сделан из нанизанных на нитку половинок ядер грецкого ореха, которые обмакивают в виноградный дошаб, высушивают и затем посыпают мукой из пшата, корицей, толченой гвоздикой и кардамоном. Sujukh (sharots) is made from halves of walnut kernels strung on a thread, which are dipped in grape doshab, dried, and then sprinkled with millet flour, cinnamon, crushed cloves, and cardamom.
The syrup is made in Druze villages in the northern Golan Heights.
In some areas, its combined with tahini to make a dip called dibs wa tahini (), and then eaten with bread (typically pita), similar to pekmez, date syrup, or carob syrup.
Grape syrup is particularly popular in the city of Hebron, where the cultivation of grapes is also popular, where it is eaten in a variety of dishes, in combination with tahini to make a dip, or with snow to make ice cream.
Azerbaijan
In Azerbaijan, pekmez is mixed with yogurt and consumed during summer time.
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