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

[Chris Stanifer]

--- "Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius" <adamantius.magister at verizon.net> wrote:

> Please let me start by saying I'm only half serious here, but who was 
> it that wrote:
> 


Aha!!  A semi-tongue-in-cheek attempt to prove a point!!  Friendly tone...yet full of pointed
questions....meant to pull me off guard, perhaps....must...stay...focused.


> >I'm wondering why the starter did not revive when I added fresh 
> >yeast and fresh flour.  It always
> >had before, and I can't think of any reason why it wouldn't now. 
> >Unless, there is too much acid
> >in the starter???  I mean, this stuff is lemondrop sour, and made 
> >absolutely wonderful bread,
> >pancakes and waffles, just to name a few.
> 
> Does this read like someone who regards sourness as the raison d'etre 
> for sourdough? I ask because the writer doesn't mention trying to fix 
> it by adding lactobacilli, only yeast!


Exactly.  I knew there was plenty of lactoblahblahblah in the starter.  I could smell it and taste
it.  The question was, was there too much??  Had I gone past the point at which my yeast gives up
the ghost??  Had I committed microbiotic genocide-by-lactic acid?  Perhaps my initial question
should have been, quite simply: "Hey...does anyone know the specific pH level at which S.
cerevisae poops out??"  My contention, which has been thus far supported by 'smothering
references' is that lactowhatsit is the culprit responsible for the sourness of sourdough, and it
is the whatsit which we try to cultivate.  The yeast, however, wild or commercially cultured,
provides the lift and lightness for the subsequent bread, and in some small way helps the
lactobacillic bacteria survive (and vice versa...it's a symbiotic relationship).  However, without
the yeast, there really is no point in having a sourdough starter, since the bread will lay there
like a cheap prostitute.  Therefore, I added more yeast, knowing that I had plenty of l-bac to
give my doughs the sourness I required.


 > Now, suppose a new starter was made, following the methods approved 
> by frontier cooks on wagon trains headed for, say, Californey from, 
> say, Independence, Missouri. (My son used to play the Oregon Trail 
> game a lot.) In its early stages the starter would probably not be 
> very sour. It might not be sour at all, and almost certainly would 
> not reach "lemon-drop sour" <g> for several generations (in baker's 
> terms) of use. But eventually, it would happen. And for many 
> (although not all) that flavor would be a welcome effect. It's one of 
> the reasons for cultivating a long-established sourdough starter, and 
> an entire subgenre of the breadbaker's art has developed in response 
> to it.


Right.  Almost.  It's THE reason for cultivating a long-established starter, and I'll tell you
why:  The l-bac in the starter (and not the wild yeast, as some indignantly demand), once well
established, will help to prevent other, less desireable wild yeasts from inocculating the
starter, and giving it an off-flavor, or killing the yeasties.  A good, sour sourdough starter
will be very stable, provided it is fed often, and the colonies of l-bac are encouraged to keep
their defenses up.  The sourness is a by-product of this colony, and provides a desireable, sought
after flavor component which is absent in other starters (whether they are made with wild yeast,
or commercially cultured yeast).

> 
> However, look at some nineteenth-century cookbooks. Lydia Child 
> (although a Bostonian whose judgement is obviously open to question 
> in this matter) has a recipe for a starter (she just calls it yeast) 
> which employs captured, airborne wild yeasts, and makes no mention of 
> souring, 


Exactly.  It's just a starter.  If it doesn't get inocculated with l-bac, and encouraged to
culture them, then it will not turn sour.  It will forever remain, just a 'starter', wild yeast or
no.



> But these bakers were carrying with them while travelling, and baking 
> with, sourdough in large part because of its leavening capacity 
> (especially since barm and winemaker's levain were presumably not 
> readily available on the trail), and this would have been at least as 
> important as its capacity to impart a sour flavor, if not more so.


Again, right.  Almost.  The reason for carrying a sourdough was for it's stability, as mentioned
above.  A good, sour sourdough will offer up some insurances for the stalwart Cookie, which are
just not there in other starters.  In addition, the l-bac in the starter does help to further
levean the bread (in much the same way that the active yeast does), and make it light.  The sour
taste, therefore, in addition to a light texture, is a sign of a quality bread.

> 
> Consider which breadstuffs (including biscuits, pancakes, etc.) that 
> sourdough is used for, and which it is not, first off. Is sourdough 
> traditionally used in cornpone or crackers? Hardtack? Biscuits? 
> Sometimes, AFAIK, but not often. Most often it's used in leavened 
> breads. Next, consider the commercial product that replaced sourdough 
> to some extent in the Western baker's arsenal: baking powder. Not 
> only did it require less maintenance, but it offered the baker a 
> choice on whether his dough would be tangy or not (since, unlike the 
> use of soda, acids weren't, strictly speaking, a necessary addition).

This is true, to an extent.  The advent of baking powder was a time saving, efficient way to add
poof to a loaf, or a quick bread, or a biscuit (certainly easier than beating air into it with a
mallet), and to provide lift to breads in which a sourness was not desired.  However, these were
not sourdough breads.

 
> In view of all this, I submit that while sourdough is either sour, or 
> potentially so, hence the name, the sourness was not the primary 
> reason for making and using it in its 19th-century Western heyday. 
> The name describes a characteristic, but not necessarily its most 
> important characteristic.


Well, I'd agree with you if it weren't for the fact that the sourness was a sign of quality, and
bakers probably wanted their guests/cowpokes to be able to smell/taste the quality.  I contend
that the sourness was as important to the Western baker, for this reason, as the ability to raise
the bread.

William de Grandfort

=====
Through teeth of sharks, the Autumn barks.....and Winter squarely bites me.


		
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