I recently got a book on interlirary loan called Handbook of Indigenous
Fermented Foods (2nd Ed), Keith H. Steinkraus (Ed.), New York, Marcel
Denker, Inc.,1996, ISBN 0-8247-9352-8.
It is a killer information source if you are into hard data (of the food
sort). Pages 200-211 deal with sourdough cultures, and are packed with
information as well as references to more basic stuff. It is the usual
uncommented stuff of food science, but a great source.
The thing that I personally found interesting was that sourdough bread
cultures from disparate parts of the world seem to converge to the same
community of microorganisms as they evolve. According to this idea, a
culture is a culture as long as it is handled in a similar way for a long
enough time.
This helps me to understand why, when I mixed two different cultures that I
had kept going for a long time separately, the result of the two was better
than either had been before the mixing, and got better for months
thereafter. Any similar experiences?
Ron
Ron Parker (mailto:rbparker@henning.cfa.org)