Jane Thrall

I asked her why she continues to make so many loaves now that her children have moved away. Her answer was simple: the sourdough is also part of her family.

Her mother, a first-generation immigrant from France, brought the family’ s sourdough starter with her to Canada in the 1980s. My friend claims the levain came from her grandmother and is a living legacy that connects her to her ancestors and gives her bread a special place in her heart.

Sourdough is one of the oldest forms of bread, originating thousands of years ago near Egypt. The earliest written account of sourdough can be traced back to 400 BCE in the writings of the Greek philosopher and physician Hippocrates. Roman author and philosopher Pliny the Elder described making bread from the remnants of the previous day’ s dough in his extensive encyclopedia Natural History, published around 77 – 79 CE.

Formed by the fermentation of wild yeast and lactobacilli, each sourdough starter is unique to the region where it originated. Numerous strains of these microbes exist, found on everything from grapes and berries, bark and leaf litter, on our hands, and in the air we breathe.

Wild yeasts are not the same as modern commercial yeast, which has been bred for accelerated fermentation. Wild yeast reproduces slowly and takes much longer to make dough rise, but it encourages the growth of acid-producing lactobacilli, adding that characteristic flavour.

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