[Sca-cooks] Bread and yeast history (Re: Period Pretzels, yet again...)
JIMCHEVAL at aol.com
JIMCHEVAL at aol.com
Sun Feb 17 23:50:31 PST 2013
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.
More information about the Sca-cooks
mailing list