The recent pandemic has resulted in a surge of home bakers taking the opportunity to try their hand at new or length recipes that their work schedules never previously allowed. Sourdough bread might seem like a new trend, but before the advent of modern refrigeration, baker’s yeast was rare or non-existent. If you wanted fresh bread, you either had to purchase it from a local bakery or make it home from your own sourdough starter.
Sourdough Bread Through History
While flatbread, crackers, pita, or tortillas have been common as long as mankind could grind grain, leavened bread has a much shorter history. Leavening agents cause bread to rise into fluffy rolls and loads. History.com notes that yeast cultivation started in ancient Egypt, likely as a result of someone noticing bubbling from a bowl left exposed to the air.
Even though in the United States sourdough seems to be attributed to San Franciscan miners, sourdough bread has been made for centuries. The Smithsonian published an article describing how a researcher made bread from 5000-year-old Egyptian yeast spores.
The method eventually became that with each batch of bread, the baker would reserve some of the dough to be used in the starter for the next batch. This helped guarantee that the next batch would actually rise through a process of natural selection. Through trial and error, leaving a bowl of a flour and water mixture might catch wild yeast in the air, giving rise to a fluffy loaf of bread. However, some days may not have enough yeast in the air to give a suitable rise. Using the successful dough, the good yeast will multiply, leavening the next loaf.
Throughout the centuries, home bakers maintained their own starters to make their own loafs of bread. It wasn’t until the 19th century that yeast started being commercially produced on a large scale, where manufacturers produced cakes of yeast for sale. During WWII, producers had developed dried yeast, for sale in foil packets.
After a century, bakers are rediscovering the flavor and fun of baking their own bread from home made sourdough starters.
I’ve been using an easy recipe from An Oregon Cottage, found here:
