In the southern part of India, it is common to have Idlis (fermented rice steamed dumplings) for breakfast and most households make Idli batter the previous night, and let it ferment and raise. The more the batter raises, the softer the Idlis are (and sour), and the mother often summons the kid to stir it with their bare hands. It is always the kid whose microbes help the batter ferment the most. This dubious honor fell on my hands, no pun intended. Most nights, before we slept, my mother used to shout out to come and stir the batter.
20+ years ago I tried to bake bread a time or two, and it failed. I "recently" tried again, whilst taking care of a small child - on the basis that even if it went horribly wrong he could sit in his chair and play with dough for a while.<p>This time around almost all my breads have risen, and turned out to be wonderfully edible. My preferred recipe is cobbled together based upon numerous other ones I've seen, and uses yeast, flour, salt and water:<p><a href="https://blog.steve.fi/this_is_mostly_how_i_make_bread.html" rel="nofollow">https://blog.steve.fi/this_is_mostly_how_i_make_bread.html</a><p>But I've also had a lot of fun with sourdough, the flavours are much better and despite the longer time involved I think it is definitely worthwhile.<p>I've baked a loaf of bread each evening this week, and tonight I'm taking the night off. But no doubt I'll be baking again on Saturday & Sunday - as I've just found another interesting variety of (Finnish) flour to try using!
The cover of the new "Noma Guide to Fermentation" is an illustration of this phenomenon. <a href="https://www.workman.com/products/the-noma-guide-to-fermentation" rel="nofollow">https://www.workman.com/products/the-noma-guide-to-fermentat...</a><p>P.S. It's an awesome cookbook; highly recommended.
I’m reminded of Rogue’s Beard Beer[0], which was made with yeast cultured from a brewer’s beard.<p>0: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rogue_Beard_Beer" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rogue_Beard_Beer</a>
Gastropod has a great episode on Sourdough that's worth a listen if you like this article:<p><a href="https://gastropod.com/secrets-of-sourdough/" rel="nofollow">https://gastropod.com/secrets-of-sourdough/</a>
I started baking sourdough bread lately, it takes about 15-20 minutes of work over 3 days to produce a loaf, from my starter, flour, water and salt.<p>It’s really rewarding to create something from scratch with simple ingredients.
I bake all our bread, and it's sourdough, every two or three days. I wonder what effect this has on my overall health in a positive or negative way.<p>EDIT: To be clear, this article is about microbes on the hands of sourdough bread bakers. I'm curious about what effect these microbes on my hands have on my body, if anything. Not the ingestion of my bread.
Dovetails with the history of industrial white bread marketing push first half of 20th century - sterile mechanized factory vs. dirty small bakeries where those darker skin immigrants, like Italians, make your bread with bare hands.<p>This industrial quick rise, yeast plus extra sugar instead of yeast slowly feeding of carbohydrates from the grain, white bread one can connect to the host of modern days autoimmunes and digestive issues.
Terry Gross interviewed him on Monday's Fresh Air: <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2018/11/12/666933600/counting-the-bugs-and-bacteria-youre-never-home-alone-and-thats-ok" rel="nofollow">https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2018/11/12/6669336...</a><p>I enjoyed it.
Seems intuitive but I wish there was a little more detail on their protocol, e.g. did they check who had washed their hands when, how long do the bacteris stay, etc.