[Sca-cooks] citations on sour dough from the OED

[Bill Fisher]

On Tue, 30 Nov 2004 21:22:51 -0800 (PST), Chris Stanifer
<jugglethis at yahoo.com> wrote:

> Well, I don't think it's a matter of the cook or housewife waiting for the starter to turn sour,
> since we are assuming that the starter is already up and running (aren't we??) If not, then you
> are correct... they would probably use the young starter before it soured, but the goal is to get
> that starter nice and sour, so that it becomes microbiolgically stable.  So, pulling off a bit of
> young starter would be fine, so long as the rest were kept alive, and encouraged to sour.

Well, in the e-mail that started the marathon, you mourned the loss of
your starter.
So I am going from the point of view that sooner or later you are
going to need to
make a new starter.  I can't see people waiting around for the starter
to age to the
point where it is soured for taste.  Once the starter is usable, 
bread was made.

The bread wouldn't be sour at first, but would get sour over time.  

> Yes.  If you try to 'create' a sourdough starter in the fridge, you're not going to have much
> luck...or at the very least it is going to take you a few yeast lifetimes.  My starter was
> cultured at warm room temp, and only refrigerated after the initial sourness was achieved.

OK, I was just stating that, if you want your  new starter to be sour
- give it some heat,
and time.  Maybe sleep with it ;-)

> Absolutely correct.  It's a symbiotic relationship, like coffee and doughnuts.  And it is exactly
> this 'antibiotic' quality which makes a sourdough stable,   And guess what?  It is also sour.

But not initially.  The starter has to be around a while to be soured
enough to taste,
correct?  Also, the local strain of lactobaccili each produce a
different level of sour.
The starter is usable as leaven before it is sour, correct?  I can't
see people going
without bread while waiting for a starter to sour.
 
> Surely.  That's why old 49ers are said to have taken their starters to bed with them in the
> winter...to keep them warm, and keep the whole mess alive and kicking.

Well, people have done stranger things to make sure they can eat the next day.

> This is where we depart the train, and take divergent paths.  It is my contention that the
> sourness, and the subsequent microbiological stability, are the target.

Ok, but is the starter usable as leaven before the souring occurs? 
Yes.  The souring
is a side effect of keeping the starter for a long period of time.  So
a soured bread
would be made from a longer term starter.  Also, wouldn't keeping the
starter alive
be more a matter of convenience than taste?  Taking the starter to bed at night 
(I can imagine the yeast and bacteria picked up there! ew :-x) would maintain 
the starter for convenience.  
 
> I can't think of any period references for sourdough, and it's pretty widely believed that the
> term 'sourdough' is a modern American thingy... not a period thingy.  The original debate wasn't
> about the periodness of the starter.
> 
> 
> William de Grandfort


No, but it has to come from somewhere, and have roots.  People just
didn't decide
"hey, let's make sour bread."  They were using a process that was
already established
and in use.  I'm trying to find a chicken or egg for the sourness vs leaven.

I believe Platina lists under bread that they used dough fron the
previous batches of
bread to provide leavening.  Given some of the generalizations Platina
makes for some
of the other entries, (or copy errors/changes in his borrowing) it
could be seen that he is
seeing a starter in use and sees it as merely dough.  But he never
describes a difference
in taste between that and bread made with barm.  Then again it seems
that if Platina
doesn't find something interesting, he doesn't go into it.

The only other book I have available without uncrating (must buy more
shelves) is
Rabisha, and he doesn't list a thing for bread.

Cadoc
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