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

[Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius]

Also sprach Chris Stanifer:
>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.

We can talk about cuskynoles _later_.

>  > 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.

Okay. I'd have thought that between the prolonged refrigeration and 
the pH level, there were yeast-killing conditions at work...

>  > 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).

See, my whole point is to demonstrate the problems when we talk in 
universal, empirical terms ;-).  All that you say is true when you 
substitute the word "a" for "THE". I'm familiar with this stuff, but 
I think it's leading you down a logical path that confuses cause (or 
collateral phenomenon) with effect.

>  > 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.

Tell that to a chuck wagon cook. The souring is not always something 
we can control. Sometimes it just happens, either because we 
deliberately made it happen or neglected to prevent it.

>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.

I think we're doing the empirical boogie again. I think I have some 
kind of license on this list to speak ex cathedra, but I try not to 
abuse the right ;-). Yes, the sourness does provide side benefits, 
and is a sign of quality, but that's not the same thing as saying it 
_is_ the quality we're seeking.

>  > 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.

No, of course not. They were, however, breads or bread variants, and 
staple foods that the cook couldn't afford to leave out of most 
meals, and for that reason, the most immediate design criterion -- a 
convenient, stable form of leavening for breads and other baked goods 
-- is met by baking powder, and by using it to replace sourdough, 
you're pretty much identifying what it is about the sourdough that is 
really valued.

>  > 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.

Again, a sign of quality is not the same thing _as_ quality, any more 
than, say, pouring fresh blood over stale meat makes it fresh again. 
And I agree that some did, and would, equate the sourness with 
quality, but then some people used to believe that thunder caused 
milk to sour, too, when in fact they were joint effects of the same 
phenomenon, not cause and effect. I'm not saying sourness should be 
ignored for that style in that setting, I'm just saying we should not 
forget our priorities, and that sourness provided by lactothingies is 
some unidentified percentage level less important than the leavening 
power of yeast in this equation.

Adamantius
-- 






"S'ils n'ont pas de pain, vous fait-on dire, qu'ils  mangent de la 
brioche!" / "If they have no bread, you have to say, let them eat 
brioche."
	-- attributed to an unnamed noblewoman by Jean-Jacques 
Rousseau, "Confessions", pub 1782

"Why don't they get new jobs if they're unhappy -- or go on Prozac?"
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