Running Head: SOURDOUGH

Sourdough
Kerry Nefferdorf
CIV

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Sourdough
The first leavened bread, in Egypt circa 3000 BC, was sourdough. In fact, all leavened
breads were sourdough breads until brewers yeast became available in the 13th and 14th century,
which in turn was replaced by commercial yeast in the 19th century. Before it was possible to
buy yeast for ones bread, it was necessary to capture and cultivate naturally-occurring yeast
from the air, water, and the flour itself.
Despite the introduction of commercial yeast during the 1800s, during that same time,
sourdough flourished in the miner culture of the American West. As a matter of fact,
sourdoughs was a slang term for the prospectors themselves, as they often carried a sourdough
culture with them. Miners in Alaska were said to sleep with their sourdough cultures to prevent
them from freezing. One of the California miners provided sourdough culture to Isidore Boudin,
a French baker who established a bakery in San Francisco in 1849. The Boudin family have
been using the same culture ever since.
The sourdough breads made in San Francisco have such a unique, strongly sour flavor, that
the particular strain of bacteria found in San Francisco yeast cultures was eventually named
Lactobacillus sanfranciscensis. (This same strain of bacteria, however, is also found in
sourdoughs in Greece and Italy.)
Sourdough has enjoyed a resurgence in popularity since the 1980s, when artisanal breads
started to become popular. People are now more interested, in general, with the origin and
quality of the foods they eat, and bread is no exception to this trend. While for some people, this
has led to the extreme measure of cutting grains out of their diet altogether, for many it has

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meant getting back to the roots of breadmaking as it has existed since the beginning of
civiliazation.

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Bibliography

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Kimbell,V.(2014,321).TheHistoryofSourdoughBread.Retrieved215,2015,fromThe
SourdoughSchool:http://www.sourdough.co.uk/thehistoryofsourdoughbread/
Sourdough:WildBreadoftheWest.(n.d.).Retrieved215,2015,fromSunset:
http://www.sunset.com/foodwine/techniques/sourdoughstarter
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