[Sca-cooks] Period Pretzels, yet again...
Laura C. Minnick
lcm at jeffnet.org
Mon Feb 18 05:18:26 PST 2013
On 2/17/2013 10:21 PM, Terry Decker wrote:
> Beer drinking countries tend to use brewer's yeast, wine drinking
> countries don't. 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.
>
> I believe I'm up to seven European bread recipes from between 500 and
> 1600 CE. The majority of these are manor recipes prepared by cooks
> rather than bakers. There are a number of bread recipes(?) that can
> be winkled out of Greek and Roman pre-collapse texts and there are
> quite a few recipes after 1600.
>
> The Romans created professional bakers and the strictures they placed
> on bakers created the basic guild structure. Like most guilds of the
> Middle Ages, the bakers kept their "mysteries" secret transferring
> them from master to apprentice, then honing their skills as a
> journeyman (often and itinerant baker's assistant) until being offered
> the opportunity to present a master work and become a master. One of
> the master works I've seen described in a tertiary source was a
> village, complete with people and animals, consisting of various types
> of bake goods.
>
> Bear
Bear, this may be a dumb question, but have you baked directly from the
ale barm? How was it different from, say, the powdered yeast you can buy
at the grocery? I know when I was brewing small mead, I would skim off
the foam and wonder if I could scoop it off and use it for bread. Never
tried because even then I was having serious hand/wrist issues. Haven't
made bread in about 15 years. I might give it a try if it was part of an
experiment...
Liutgard
--
"It is our choices Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our
abilities." -Albus Dumbledore ~~~Follow my Queenly perambulations at:
http://slugcrossings.blogspot.com/
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