[Sca-cooks] Bread and yeast history (Re: Period Pretzels, yet again...)

[JIMCHEVAL at aol.com]

OK, a few things.

The officer who opened  a bakery in 1839 was Austrian: August Zang. I 
self-published a book about  him:

http://www.amazon.com/August-Zang-French-Croissant-ebook/dp/B0026RI3OA

I  also wrote the article about him for the French Dictionnaire Universel 
du Pain  (Laffont, 2010), as well as the article on the croissant. Which he 
introduced  into France.

The idea that he introduced the use of yeast into French  baking is a 
legend of the trade which completely ignores the descriptions  Malouin gives of 
using yeast in breads in his eighteenth century volume.  

http://chezjim.com/18c/breads/Bread_18_3.html#four

Conversely,  there is no contemporary account of Zang introducing the use 
of yeast; what was  discussed in trade works at the time was his introduction 
of the Viennese steam  oven (which is what gives baguettes those nice shiny 
surfaces). The big Austrian  contribution came shortly after when pressed 
yeast was invented in Vienna,  simplifying its use and in a far purer form 
(brewer's yeast tended to leave a  distinct flavor).

Yes, yeast was used in seventeenth century French  pastry. That's not the 
same as using it in bread, which was very controversial  when it was 
introduced in the late seventeenth century. It was mainly used in  luxury breads, 
not only in the eighteenth century, but even after Zang. It was  probably the 
early twentieth century before the long breads which became the  baguette 
(in 1920) were yeast, rather than sourdough, leavened. By then French  bakers 
had begun to preferment yeast using a method they called 'pouliche'  (foal), 
but which somehow morphed into 'poliche' by the twentieth century,  giving 
rise to the myth that it was a Polish method (also supposedly introduced  by 
Zang).

I know quite a bit about Gonesse (whose water was credited with  the 
excellence of its bread), but I've never seen it claimed that yeast was used  
there. Can you cite a source that says as much?

Pliny mentions the use of  the foam from cervoise in Gaul to make bread. 
But this was clearly only true of  one part of Gaul, since many regions used 
grains like millet which simply don't  rise very well. I know of no evidence 
at all that the Romans (or the later  French) adopted this Gallic method and 
in fact the favored Roman method (there  were several) was the sourdough 
method.

"At the present day, however, the  leaven is prepared from the meal that is 
used for making the bread. For this  purpose, some of the meal is kneaded 
before adding the salt, and is then boiled  to the consistency of porridge, 
and left till it begins to turn sour. In most  cases, however, they do not 
warm it at all, but only make use of a little of the  dough that has been kept 
from the day before.  "
http://books.google.com/books?pg=PA39&dq=inauthor:Pliny+bread+dough&ei=3tshU
fyUE47vigKokoA4&id=WIFiAAAAMAAJ#v=onepage&q=inauthor%3APliny%20bread%20dough
&f=false

To  the contrary, the Roman method seems to have taken over in Gaul.

I would  certainly be interested in any actual recipes for bread from 
between 500 and  1600 CE, especially for France, where I've never seen a one. And 
yes, these  would be from manors; public bakers (like the guilds and much 
else about Roman  infrastructure) seem to have essentially disappeared under 
the Merovingians. The  bakers mentioned both by Gregory of Tours and 
Charlemagne's biographers were  typically parts of large households (though Gregory 
mentions some home-baking as  well).

Nothing like a guild is mentioned in France until about the 9th  century 
and no true guilds (corporations) until about the 13th, though several  of 
these claimed to have existed for several centuries at that point. I  
understand there is a lingering controversy about how much the Roman colleges  
persisted into the French guilds, but in the written record there's a very large  
break. There is one mythical (if much repeated) claim that Dagobert I gave  
"statutes" to the bakers, but in fact he left no municipal statutes, only 
legal  codes similar to the Salic law, and these do not mention bakers at  all.

Jim Chevallier
www.chezjim.com

Newly translated from  Pierre Jean-Baptiste Le Grand d'Aussy:
Eggs, Cheese and Butter in Old Regime  France 

In a message dated 2/17/2013 10:22:06 P.M. Pacific Standard Time,  
t.d.decker at att.net writes:
However, there are places in France (the village  of Gonesse for one, 
supposedly as early as the 13th Century) where brewer's  yeast has been 
used 
as leavening for centuries.  La Varenne records the  use by pastissiers of 
yeast rather than starter to make lighter  pastries.  Parmentier opposed 
using brewers yeast and was against using  salt (obviously not 
understanding 
its use in controlling the ferment).   Serious use of brewer's yeast in 
French bread didn't occur until 1840 when a  Prussian officer opened a 
bakery 
in Paris with Viennese  bakers.

Brewer's yeast, Saccharomyces cerevisiae, is a top fermenting ale  yeast. 
The active fermentation, the ale barm, occurs at the top of the  brewing 
vessel where it can be dipped out and used as a combination of yeast  and 
liquor to make and leaven bread.  This is the method the Gauls used  that 
was 
described by Pliny.  It is precisely the same method of barm  fermentation 
that was used for roughly the next 1700 years until  commercially processed 
yeast became available.  Gallic bakers brought  the technique into the 
Roman 
Empire.