Rethinking Lifestyle

The pioneers that populated Canada were resilient and self-sufficient people. They had to make all their own bread at a time before dehydrated fast acting commercial yeast was available, so they took a small quantity of starter with them. This would have been a sourdough starter so all their bread would have been sourdough, which is now considered to be supreme and is highly sought after. Incidentally, sourdough is a symbiotic mix of natural yeast and bacteria. The yeast produces gas bubbles giving the bread its typical light texture and the bacteria produce acid giving sourdough bread its delicious flavour. There are many varieties of natural yeast around the world and they all give different flavours to the resulting bread. It is even quite possible to make one’s own starter from local yeasts. In the Bible the Old Testament has many references to unleavened bread (ie bread without yeast), which implies that bread made with yeast was also available at that time. There are references in the New Testament as well, and all this would have been sourdough bread.

Unlike the dehydrated fast acting modern yeast that comes in a jar that can be stored in a freezer, sourdough starter is alive and active so requires a bit of looking after – like a pet. Called feeding, this is quite simple and only requires a small amount of flour and water to be added for a couple of days after which it can be stored in the fridge until your next batch of bread.

Mastering the art of making sourdough bread seems to be something that many people are currently trying to do, myself included. Some people seem to get it right straight off, whilst others like me have been struggling for years and I cannot understand why it doesn’t go easily for me. I have made all my own bread for 20 years or more, consequently I find it very frustrating that I have had such difficulty making sourdough bread. It would seem that there isn’t a one-size-fits-all method that will work with everyone, perhaps because of different starters or different flours – wholemeal, all white or mixes of both, or even different water. However, since sourdough bread has been made all over the world for thousands of years it must be tolerant of a wide range of variables. Nevertheless, in spite of my misgivings I have recently finally made one excellent batch and hope I can repeat this long-sought-after success.

Along with many others searching for success, I have ‘cheated’ and added regular yeast hoping that the sourdough would give the sought-after flavour and the regular yeast the gas bubbles. However, regular yeast doesn’t like an acid environment so it doesn’t work very well. I once tried adding a can of Heinz Tomato Sauce as the liquid component of my bread dough hoping to get a spicy tomato flavoured pink bread, but the regular yeast didn’t like it. Maybe it would work in a sourdough bread: is anyone game to try it?

Are you a bread maker? And have you ever tried making sourdough bread? The flavour is fantastic and it is said to be more healthful especially more healthful than the white fluff that supermarkets call bread.