[Ravensfort] yeast

Charles Atchley charley at consolidated.net
Sat Mar 5 15:56:49 PST 2005


I am trying to find any information that someone might have on bread being cooked not in conjunction with brewing. The only period thing I can find about yeast starters are all sourdough or beer fermentation sludge. I have found one reference that mentioned using bubbling bread to make beer bubble. This would lead me to believe that bread was made with a starter sponge. I have also found where bread was "brought to life with cask dregs". I have also found a recipe that is supposedly period that is in weird funky measures that has a mug of fresh ale added to flour. The only thing I can find about bread is large batch stuff, and most start with a double dipper of ground grain, and water, standing till bubbling. I assume that most people made bread, but they did it informally and only a monastery would have written down something like baking processes because of the literacy issues. I found one that called for a "fist of leaven." Would that be baking powder or soda or just another name for sour dough starter???? I even found a period recipe for unleavened Passover bread. But that still begs the issue of how did they make bread rise if there was not beer brewing near by. my Latin is weak enough that I may have looked right at a source and failed to recognize what was being said pertained to the leavening of bread. I have spent a bunch of time in A&M's library and am up against the wall. The only thing I can find on the web are colonial and later recipes or ones with no verifiable documentation that I think people wish were period recipes.

Athaulf the frustrated Sweinbrothar
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.ansteorra.org/pipermail/ravensfort-ansteorra.org/attachments/20050305/0dbbc85c/attachment-0005.htm>


More information about the Ravensfort mailing list