[Sca-cooks] Bread Puzzles

[JIMCHEVAL at aol.com]

I believe it's just a regional variation, indicating the specific item used 
 for the (more general) leavening. Cotgrave records "leveton" as a word for 
 leavening and I suspect both have the sense of the specific mass put in to 
 leaven something as opposed to the general function of the leavening. But 
the  term seems unrelated to any standard French term, so this is 
necessarily a  guess.
 
Jim  Chevallier

Contributor, Savoring Gotham
A Food  Lover's Companion to New York City
Editor-in-chief: Andrew F. Smith  and Foreword by Garrett Oliver
https://global.oup.com/academic/product/savoring-gotham-9780199397020?cc=us&
lang=en


In a message dated 2/1/2016 2:36:57 P.M. Pacific Standard Time,  
ddfr at daviddfriedman.com writes:

I gather  "levain" is leavening. What's the distinction between that and  
"leave?"