Happy Birthday to The Village Baking Co. Sourdough Starter! Seven years ago today, The Village Baking Co. began with the birth of our Sourdough Starter. As Clint returned to Dallas from the San Francisco Baking Institute, he had one thing in mind, to start baking the best sourdough bread in the South. Seven years later the sourdough continues to rise as we "spread the loaves" across Texas. Pick up the birthday bread at your local farmers market and celebrate!
HISTORY OF SOURDOUGH
Sourdough is the oldest and most original form of leavened bread. The oldest recorded use of sourdough is from the Ancient Egyptian civilizations.
It was probably discovered as most things are by accident. The first recorded civilization we know about that used sourdough was the Egyptians around 1500 BC. There are many stories as to how they first discovered it, but you can probably imagine that some bread was left out and some of the wild yeast spores that are in the air at all times got mixed in the dough and they noticed that it rose and was lighter than the usual flat breads. The Egyptians also made a lot of beer and the brewery and the bakery were often in the same place. a batch of flour may have been mixed with beer and produced a light loaf of bread, or the wild yeast spores were thick from the brewing and they got into the bread doughs and caused them to rise considerably more than the usual wild sourdoughs. Through trial and error they found out that some of these sourdough cultures worked and tasted better than others. They could keep this culture alive by saving from their baking a little raw dough and adding more flour to it, and it would produce the same flavor. This is known as a sourdough starter. A good sourdough culture became very important to day to day living, and even taken by explorers when they went on expeditions around the world.
During the gold rush days in California, some of the Boudin family who were well known master Bakers from France came to the San Francisco area. They found out that the sourdough culture there was very unique and they became very famous for their bread with this special flavor. The miners flocked to this bakery every morning for this special tasting bread. Since 1849 they have been using the same sourdough culture, which they call a "Mother dough" and the same recipe, flour, water, a pinch of salt and some of the this "Mother Dough".So important is their "Mother Dough" it was heroically saved by Louise Boudin during the Great San Francisco Earthquake of 1906.
Sourdough also came in handy 'when old timers had to tan hides. They rubbed it into the skin, fur side down till soft and dry. Some claim there starters to the fame of originating in the old country or from the Klondike era. Recently a sum of $600.00 American was paid by a restaurant desiring the authenticity of Alaskan sourdough from the gold rush days.
DID YOU KNOW....Sourdough turns Carbohydrates into Proteins?
They say that Sourdough contains the greatest amount of protein for it's weight and size of any comparable food. "Hmm" I thought "just how does that come about when it's ingredients are all carbohydrates?" Apparently a wild yeast forms in the fermentation process of the starter. At that stage, a starch food is turned into a protein dynamo food.
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