Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Eat Your Heart Out, Dr. Frankenstein!!
I have created life!! Yes, it's true...and I'm not referring to the people I live with who are affected by a mental illness that incapacitates their ability to change the toilet paper roll (see my blog entry from September 13th below)!!
I have created a sourdough starter that is breathing bubbly texture into my loaves of sourdough bread. This substance that I'm keeping in two jars at the back of my fridge resembles something most of us would frantically dump in the garbage and quickly remove from the house. But in actuality, it is a living, breathing, fascinating little science experiment that I have affectionately named Hector. You can see him proofing in the photo above.
My decision to try my hand at sourdough bread was partly due to the downturn in our economy that has many of us looking to save our pennies. But it also had something to do with my drive to bake and store food away at this time of the year, a primitive behavior that I am certain is present in anyone of the female gender, whether they want to admit it or not.
Bread is about as basic to human society as anything else I can think of. It is a simple food, and you don't need a commercial yeast product to make it. Sourdough is made using the natural yeast/bacteria that exists in the air around us. I will not explain the process here, but highly recommend the following link if you are interesting in trying it for yourself.
After reading instructions for sourdough starter on several different websites I chose to follow S. John Ross' well written steps as they made the most sense to me. A simple direction for a simple process. Nothing could be easier. Some folks try to complicate it, but people did this in covered wagons on the Oregon Trail. It's really NOT complicated.
I hope you will try it out, and wish you many delicious, inexpensive loaves! And now....I have to go feed Hector!
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