This was dinner tonight. Don't cry for me, Argentina, the truth is, for now, this is the best bread that I ever tasted in the whole world. Ever. Made by anybody through history. And three little pieces with an excellent olive oil is quite sufficient, thank you.
Love that word, artisan. Crafted, not mass produced. That is what is happening here. Dear Dad, bless 'im, recollects with wonder an aunt of his, so an aunt of mine, "She made her own loaves of bread every week. She baked five loaves regularly on Saturday to last the week, and on that day the whole house filled with the aroma of baking bread."
And I'm all, "BFD. "
I haven't bought a loaf of bread since ... since ... ever. And the loaves I make are not from necessity all dumb-ass pan loaves, nor necessarily from unimaginative cop out commercial yeast. And no two are ever the same. So there, mon père.
And he's all, "You little smart ass, why I ought'ta ..."
This is the culture collected on Maui. Possible through of the forbearance of my brother. I can think of no one else who would allow such a stinky thing in their condominium, and he put up with my odd interests for days, in fact, he gave the appearance of being genuinely interested.
He was present, and deeply amused, when I bought women's hose. Cheesecloth to cover the bowl of collection slurry was nowhere to be found on Maui, in the places where we looked.
The first culture-collection slurry was made from flour bought on the island and local tap water. It was set outside on the balcony and within two days the slurry was bubbling like mad on its own due to the ambient heat even in the shade. Just as bacteria and yeast colonizes like mad on one's own hot moist body within hours. Those are definitely two-shower-a-day islands, I must say. The stink of the virgin culture was unbelievable. It had to be dried, turned to powder, and sealed immediately, just to deal with it, otherwise there would be no having it around.
A second collection was made as backup at another location on the island. That slurry was started and ended within just a few hours of one windy afternoon.
Over the ensuing months the two cultures were mixed up and combined. Presently I do not know which one is which or if there was ever any difference. Whichever it is, the culture is distinct from all the others. The bread that the culture produces from white flour has a much thicker crust than any other culture. Flavor is concentrated in bread crust, real bread crust, not fake-o bread crust on bread that is rapidly mass produced in pans, the type that has overtaken the world of bread and which consumers have become accustomed, a pale remnant vestige of what bread crust used to be and is now often removed as annoyance. That is a livin' shame, that is.
So-called sourdough bakers provide careful instructions for the loving care of natural cultures. The home baker is expected to keep the cultures alive through constant regular feeding, like a pet. I say to that, "Bullshit. " I am as careless a culture caretaker as you are likely to find. This particular culture was absolutely neglected in the crisper (should be called "limper" because that is what happens to everything that goes in there) for at least six months, if not longer. It was not stored in liquid form, rather, a few tablespoons of sponge was removed from the previous round of bread-making before that sponge was salted and before any extraneous material was added such as lecithin or flax oil, eggs, and especially salt, raw sponge at its peak, and then smothered with as much flour as it could take so that it resembled a hard golf ball. There it sat thusly neglected for at least half a year. I have seven such cultures stored this way, There are even more in powdered form, and yet more frozen in powdered form. They all come back to life with their unique characteristics revitalized, as if they are happy to see me. Or at least pleased to see the light of day.
See? It crumbled. I expected it might be dead. That ↑ was rehydrated with an equal portion of tap water by weight. I could tell the culture conked out due to lack of water before it consumed all the flour. So there was still unused flour in there that would be taken up immediately, now that conditions are favorable. Out of fear of contaminating a weak culture with foreign organisms carried on fresh flour. I held off on feeding it. I did add a speck of sugar as fast-food to assist the sleeping organisms, but nothing more than, say, 1/16th teaspoon, along with about 1/3 teaspoon fresh flour, just to give it a quick start in case it needed.
It exploded to life. At room temperature, 74℉-76℉ / 24℃ within twenty-four hours, the culture looked like this:
Woot! It crawled up the side of the jar.
Ed Wood is author of Classic Sourdoughs and owner of International Sourdoughs, an online sourdough starter vendor. He is a very congenial and accessible fellow who was very helpful to me back in the day when I didn't know nuthing 'bout raisin' no sourdough. He maintains a newsletter to which I subscribed for awhile. In that newsletter he wrote of his son's description of his method of bringing a starter out of slumber back up to peak performance, a process of multiple feeding each day for a period of a few weeks until finally the culture was deemed performing at maximum vitality and virility.
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.
I'm sorry. That kills me.
If I did that, my cultures would crawl out of their jar, slap me in the face and go, "What are you doing?"
Still here, through all of that? I've been very busy lately working my hands off. The brother that I mentioned ↑up there, the one who was so patient with me in Maui, has a birthday coming up in a few days. I need to make a card and get it in the mail, priority, with delivery confirmation, which enables me to observe the progress of the card as it wends its way across the country and very well assures timely delivery. Would you care to see the card I made?
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