Eric Pallant - Sourdough Culture: A History of Bread Making from Ancient to Modern Bakers

A HISTORY OF BREAD MAKING FROM ANCIENT TO MODERN BAKERS

ERIC PALLANT

FOREWORD BY PETER REINHART

A GATE

CHICAGO

Copyright 2021 by Eric Pallant

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without express written permission from the publisher.

First printed in September 2021

Printed in the United States

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Cover design by Morgan Krehbiel

Author photo by John Mangine

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Pallant, Eric, author.

Title: Sourdough culture : a history of bread making from ancient to modern bakers / Eric Pallant ; foreword by Peter Reinhart.

Description: [Chicago] : Surrey, [2021] | Summary: An exploration of the history of sourdough, accompanied by a selection from the authors own favorite recipes-- Provided by publisher.

Identifiers: LCCN 2021010845 (print) | LCCN 2021010846 (ebook) | ISBN 9781572843011 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781572848535 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: Sourdough bread. | Bread--History. | Cooking (Sourdough)

Classification: LCC TX770.S66 P35 2021 (print) | LCC TX770.S66 (ebook) | DDC 641.81/5--dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021010845

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021010846

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For my family, past, present, and future,
related and unrelated.

How can a nation be great if its bread tastes like Kleenex?
ATTRIBUTED TO JULIA CHILD

Cripple Creek sourdough culture (1893) preparing to start a loaf.

by Peter Reinhart

B READ HAS BECOME A CROWDED CATEGORY FOR food books these past few years. Each time a new bread book comes out, I find myself asking, Is there really anything new that can be said on the subject? And along comes another and yet another terrific book. Bread, it must be concluded, is a fathomless subject, from a scientific, historical, technological, craft, or even literary perspective. In fact, there is now so much written about bread that what we really need is a way to tie it all together, to integrate it into a cohesive fabric, to connect the dots. And this, I am pleased to see, is exactly what Eric Pallant has done in this lively, beautifully written tome about the six-thousand-year journey of sourdough from the Fertile Crescent to our twenty-first-century kitchens.

Connecting the dots is the key phrase here. Bread, more than just about any subjectand certainly in any culinary senseis totally about connectedness, both as a universal symbol and as a literal thing. Sourdough cultures are a living embodiment of connectivity, transmitting traditions, rituals, beliefs, knowledge, flavor, and living organisms from friend to friend and from parent to child. The most effective means of transmitting this kind of knowledge from person to person and generation to generation is through celebrations and through stories, and bread has a long, important, celebratory story to tell. We yearn for stories, especially when theyre well told, because they engage and work on us on multiple levels. This story of sourdough is the ideal medium through which to explore our interconnectednessour history, the development of our technology, and our humanity.

Eric Pallant has paved the way for us to traverse the deeper meanings of bread by guiding us through its outer crust.