Living Bread

Only one thing tastes better than fresh homemade bread, and that is fresh homemade sourdough bread. Traditionally, a piece of dough from the last batch of bread would be mixed with fresh flour and water, and the microorganisms present in the old dough would make the new dough rise. Then a small piece of the raw dough, called a starter would be put aside for the next batch. When I was given a starter by a friend, I couldn’t wait to try making my own delicious strong flavoured loaves!

So what exactly is a starter? Starters are also called sponge, mother dough, preferment, and levain. They are stable, live cultures containing wild yeasts and lactobacillus bacteria, supported in a mixture of flour and water. The yeasts feed on the flour, and the lactobacilli feed on the metabolism products of the yeast. These microorganisms produce carbon dioxide, which causes the dough to rise by forming bubbles, and lactic acid, which is responsible for the sour taste. Starters can be maintained indefinitely, if they are used regularly.
Although they are not sterile, starters are safe to use because they are too acidic for most microorganisms to survive. The wild yeasts thrive however, because all their competition is killed off. Even ordinary baker’s yeast cannot cope with the acid!

Not all starters produce the same bread. There are many variations depending on the location, temperature, age, and particular species of yeasts and bacteria present in the mother dough. It is this diversity that makes a quality starter so invaluable.
San Francisco is famous for its sourdough because of a particular lactobacillus strain that inhabits the area, Lactobacillus Sanfranciscensis. These bacteria make distinctively tangy bread compared to other strains.
Two French bakers, the Boudin brothers, used this to their advantage. In 1849 they opened a bakery in San Francisco, and sold traditional French bread baked from a local starter. The bread was so successful that their business is still open today, and still uses the same original mother dough to start its loaves, 160 years later. It is not uncommon to hear of starters which have been around for generations; some connoisseurs believe that the best sourdough only comes from starters that are over 40 years old.

The first yeasted bread must have been sourdough. It first appears in ancient Egypt, around 1500 BC, and is thought (hypothetically) to have come about accidently when yeasts began to grow in bread dough which had been left out, waiting to be baked. Presumably an Egyptian housewife baked the bubbly dough despite its odd smell, and liked the results! Leavening bread this way would have been common practice by the time of Moses, since the Israelites were instructed not to leave their bread to rise before they fled Egypt. Sourdough remained the most popular method of leavening bread right through to the middle ages, when it began to be replaced by barm, which is the yeast-containing scum left on top of alcoholic beverages after the brewing process. Later, the barm was replaced by the cultured baker’s yeast we use today.
Through the ages, sourdough has been used in all sorts of ways and places. The French used it to create their original croissants and baguette, which were made from wholemeal and rye. It was used for the heavy bread which is chewed in Northern Europe, such as German pumpernickel bread. American Colonists carried sourdough with them along wagon trails, and gold miners slept with their starters to stop the sponge from freezing. In fact, the bread was so popular with miners that they earned the nickname of ‘Sourdoughs’!

My own bread, once it finished baking, was a profound success. My family tested it for me, and they all loved it. It smelled yeasty and fresh, with a tangy edge. I used a recipe with lots of linseed, pumpkin seeds, oats, rye and organic wholemeal flour so each piece was like a slice of seed-stuffed wholesomeness. I am definitely looking forward to getting the starter out of the ‘fridge again next week, and beginning a new batch!