Wild Yeast

The effort to restore personal meaning to food and drink might seem hardly worthwhile, given the amount of time that must go into it. Yet to think of time as equal to monetary value is one of many ways to talk yourself into opting for the factory-made life.

Last week at a little shop we picked up a bag of Amish-grown apples. Some of the peel of one apple went into a new sourdough I was starting, which I am keeping in a bean pot. My sourdough breads last winter generally took a long time to rise. The buns and loaf I made yesterday afternoon rose in only a few hours -- maybe four -- after kneading the dough, even though the dough was cool because our pantry-kept flour is cool. The afternoon sunlight pouring in the kitchen window helped, of course. But it is a vigorous sourdough. It forced breadmaking upon me, in fact, because the spongy starter wanted to push the lid off the bean pot.

The borrowed labor of many millions of willing yeast laborers -- free laborers, at that. Time being equal to its fermentation potential ... a ridiculous thought: fully worthy, then, of serious consideration.

Cheers ...