Q&A OF THE YEAR
IS MY SOURDOUGH ACTUALLY UNIQUE?
IN PRAISE OF OUR FUNGAL FRIEND THAT WE ALL GOT TO KNOW A LOT BETTER DURING LOCKDOWNS
BY DR STUART FARRIMOND
Humans have been using yeast to make bread for at least 3,000 years. For most of that time we didn’t understand a lot about it, let alone know how to purify and grow it. In fact, until the mid-1800s, few people even thought that yeast was a living creature.
Yeast is a type of fungus that grows pretty much everywhere – in soil, on leaves, plants, flowers, and it even floats around in the air.
By happy coincidence, a handful of yeast types will ‘eat’ sugars and starches, turning them into alcohol (something we call fermentation) and belching out carbon dioxide gas. When some of our ancient ancestors experimented in their prehistoric kitchens by heating cereal grain in water with herbs to make a nourishing drink, they realised that the frothy liquid would turn into a type of beer, courtesy of yeasts that had been growing on the cereal. Mix some of this tangy slurry into a dough, bake it in an oven and you have discovered yeast-risen bread.