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

[Chris Stanifer]

--- Bill Fisher <liamfisher at gmail.com> wrote:

> I have to agree.
> 
> There is one thing I can't see happening in the process of making 
> bread.
> 
> I can't see a medival baker,  pioneer wife, or trail cook  waiting to use
> a starter until it becomes sour enough to taste.  I can see if that starter
> is fed and kept alive that it would become sour in time.


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.


> So by refrigerating your starter, it will take forever for your dough
> to get sour
> and for it to bubble,  but keeping at 80-90 degrees it should sour quickly as
> that is the best temp for both yeast and lactobacteria.


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.  

> 
> It also seems that the lactobacteria aid the yeast by breaking down starches 
> it can't eat into sugars it can eat, and also the waste products of the 
> lactobacteria keep other nasties in check, making the starter safe to eat.

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.

 
> In an environment without refrigeration or a finely controllable heat source,
> you are at the season's mercy as to how your starter will 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.


> That being said.  The sourness of the dough would be an side effect of 
> the leavening process, not the target of it.  It would be something that
> would come in under the radar as a daily or seasonal change in the
> breads, and a regional difference as well.  

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.


> Does anyone have any documentation for the keeping of a starter, how 
> long they would be kept and  how it would be treated?   That would 
> settle this pretty handily. 


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

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


		
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