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I had a starter for several years that was descended from the one kept by Dick Proenekke [1]. He lived alone in a cabin that he built himself--by hand--deep in
by chrissnell 9y ago
I had a starter for several years that was descended from the one kept by Dick Proenekke [1]. He lived alone in a cabin that he built himself--by hand--deep in the Alaskan bush. He made sourdough pancakes daily and his original starter came from a friend of his back in town. Someone related to this person sells the starter (on a wooden spoon) that you can buy [2] and use to create your own descendant.
There's a fascinating PBS documentary on him that you can watch on YouTube, if you're interested: [3]
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Proenneke https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Proenneke
[2] http://richardproenneke.com/heirloom_sourdough_starter_spoon http://richardproenneke.com/heirloom_sourdough_starter_spoon
[3] https://youtu.be/iYJKd0rkKss https://youtu.be/iYJKd0rkKss
- hendricius 9y agoReally interesting, thanks for the links. I would be curious to see how that starter behaves differently then mine. I really need a good microscope to analyse the different doughs in detail.
- etrautmann 9y agoI have a colleague who sequences the genomes of the yeast in her sourdough starter to characterize how it changes over time :)
- hendricius 9y agoThat's amazing! What are here most important learnings? TLDR :D.
- rhcom2 9y agoThat is an absolutely incredible combination of food and history. How did you like the results?
- chrissnell 9y agoThe starter was great but it's just sourdough starter. My palette is not refined enough to taste the difference between various sourdough cultures. Use the instructions in OP's link and it will probably be just as good. I think it's neat to have a starter from a place that's special to you. You could make one in your hometown, or in a favorite vacation spot, a place famous for its sourdough (like San Francisco), etc.
- hendricius 9y agoHere in Germany many people trade starters across villages. It would be interesting to have a scientific study on the differences. Maybe there is different bacteria/yeast in the different villages?
- lostlogin 9y agoThe type of flour and the temperature it’s kept at make the most difference imho. You can notice a change in the smell as seasons change.
- hendricius 9y agoThat would be really interesting to have in the recipes as well. Did you conduct any A/B tests?
- lostlogin 9y agoMore or less - bulking up the starter and putting it in the fridge (7 degrees) but leaving some in a new batch of bread at 2o degrees. If you try bulking up a starter with high grade white flour you notice a difference pretty fast too.
- bonesss 9y agoThe yeast isn't just different between villages, it's different from street to street. Wild yeast is everywhere, and very different from place to place. To my understanding a little jar of one culture stands no chance against the evolutionary pressures outside it, so within a week or two an imported starter will return to whatever yeast exist in that specific area. Trading across villages would be a really good way to keep 'new' flavours coming in :)
- DrScump 9y agoHe does his own narration in the film ("Alone in the Wilderness") as well.
- omilu 9y agoThat's not him, the narrator is Bob Swerer Jr who reads from Dicks autobiography. There are recordings of Dick you can watch and he sounds nothing like the narrators voice in Alone in the wilderness.
- tomcooks 9y agoHe also contributed science with data taken from the field during his outings, when he wasn't busy being a badass
- bgaluszka 9y agoCorrect me if I'm wrong but if you get sourdough made at some other place after couple of weeks your local culture will take over thus sourdough will loose that other place uniqueness so to speak. But I'm not an expert just something I remember when I was interested in sourdough and pizza making.
- lmilcin 9y agoYou are correct. Your method of keeping the starter will over time select the culture that is best suited for your method of keeping, from available gene pool.
- vanderZwan 9y agoReminds me of a story I heard of a beer brand (forgot which one) that opened a new factory which was heavily modernised, but decided to take the wooden roof from the old one and install it above the copper kettles in the new location to make sure the environmental bacterial cultures would remain the same to keep their "flavour identity"
- saalweachter 9y agoAnecdotally, my experience has been that while yeast cultures are durable, you can also get some maladaptive selection going from time to time; eg, if you are too irregular in feeding your starter, you might end up with a slow-growing culture rather than the fast-growing culture you get from feeding your starter twice a day and want for a good rise. Your starter will still be alive, but not as useful until you start feeding it constantly again and get that fast-growing culture established again.
- bonesss 9y agoI think that's a feature, not a bug :) The sourdough that comes from your kitchen is going to be unique to that place. Even moving across town can have a huge difference. It's a built-in thumbprint that makes sure that no one can ever really make grandmas pizza bottoms, or baguettes, quite the same...