[Sca-cooks] masa

[Stanza693 at wmconnect.com]

In a message dated 11/10/2007 2:53:40 PM Mountain Standard Time, Stefan 
writes:


> I thought masa was corn meal or corn flour (from maize) used in  
> tamales and for thickening chili. Obviously in this case it can't be  
> maize. It's not flour (wheat) since that is also mentioned. So what  
> is it?  And the comment about "kept for leavening" confuses me also,  
> unless this is something like ale barm.
> 
> Stefan
> 


I'm behind on my reading so apologies if this was already answered:

This could be a totally mistaken impression, but here's my understanding of 
"massa".

Since the ladies baked their bread each day, they would prepare the dough and 
before baking (not sure if it would be before the first or second rise) a 
lump of the dough would be pinched off and saved.  The next day, that bit of 
dough would be added into the new dough.  Since it has the yeast or other 
leavening agents from the previous day's bread, it would help with the rising of the 
next dough.  A bit of the new dough is then saved for tomorrow's baking.  And 
the process goes on.

Again, from my understanding *only*, ale barm is not a common leavening agent 
in Spain, but they do have yeast.  As Giano mentioned, they do have 
sourdoughs, too.  (As a side note, I've found information on winemaking in "Spain", but 
nothing so far on beers/ales.)

One thing I haven't yet found, that maybe another Spaniard or a Spanish 
expert could answer:  Did the Spanish use "dough troughs" like in some other parts 
of Europe?

-- Constanza Marina de Huelva
Barony of Dragonsspine, the Outlands
(Colorado Springs, CO, USA)   </HTML>