In Search of the Perfect Loaf: A Home Baker's Odyssey (36 page)

Or
they
might
arise
:
Gobbetti and Gänzle, eds.,
Handbook
on
Sourdough
Biotechnology
, chap. 5.

Insects
may
also
play
a
key
role
Willem H. Groenewald et al., “Identification of Lactic Acid Bacteria from Vinegar Flies Based on Phenotypic and Genotypic Characteristics,”
American
Journal
of
Enology
and
Viticulture
57.4 (2006): 519–25.

fruit
flies
lay
their
eggs
McGovern, Uncorking the Past, Kindle locations 277–79.

acid-tolerant
bacteria
Fabio Minervini et al., “Lactic Acid Bacterium and Yeast Microbiotas of 19 Sourdoughs Used for Traditional/Typical Italian Breads: Interactions Between Ingredients and Microbial Species Diversity,”
Applied
and
Environmental
Microbiology
78.4 (2012): 1251–64.

German
Detmolder
rye
sourdough
See Jeffrey Hamelman, Bread: A Baker’s Book of Techniques and Recipes (Wiley, 2012), p. 200.

That
is
why
scientists
have
found
I. Scheirlinck et al., “Molecular Source Tracking of Predominant Lactic Acid Bacteria in Traditional Belgian Sourdoughs and Their Production Environments,”
Journal
of
Applied
Microbiology
106(4) (Apr. 2009): 1081–92.

So
far, more than
fifty-five
species
Gobbetti and Gänzle, eds., Handbook on Sourdough Biotechnology, chap. 5, p. 114.

nineteen
Italian
sourdough
cultures
Minervini et al., “Lactic Acid Bacterium and Yeast Microbiotas of 19 Sourdoughs.”

cultures
can
even
change
Fabio Minervini et al., “Influence of Artisan Bakery- or Laboratory-Propagated Sourdoughs on the Diversity of Lactic Acid Bacterium and Yeast Microbiotas,”
Applied
and
Environmental
Microbiology
78.15 (2012): 5328–40.

It
has
higher
levels
of
sugar
E. J. Pyler and L. A. Gorton,
Baking
Science
and
Technology,
4th ed. (Sosland Publishing Co., 2008), p. 169.

Chapter 3:
California and the Country Loaf

American
artisan
bakers
generally
seek
out
French flours tend to have lower levels of protein, but they perform similarly to American artisan bread flours with one main difference: they require less water. As a general rule of thumb, you can reduce the water by 4 percentage points for French flours versus American all-purpose flours. So if a recipe calls for 700 grams of water for 1 kilo of flour, I’d start by adding 660 grams of water to the French flour to see how it performs.

Robertson
appeared
on
the
cover
Daniel Wing and Alan Scott,
The
Bread
Builders
(Chelsea Green, 1999).

Nathan
Yanko,
a
distance
runner
Yanko has since moved on, opening the bakery M.H. Bread & Butter in San Anselmo, north of San Francisco.

Chapter 4:
Re-creating a Diverse Grain Pantry

In
the
refrigerator,
I
store
Refrigeration isn’t necessary if you’re going to use the flour within a few months, but heat and humidity can lead to spoilage. Even if the flour continues to perform well over several months, when stored at room temperature, its nutritional properties gradually degrade as a result of oxidation. Refrigeration slows this process. See Andres F. Doblado-Maldonado et al., “Key Issues and Challenges in Whole Wheat Flour Milling and Storage,”
Journal
of
Cereal
Science
56.2 (2012): 119–26.

primary
source
of
food
Aaron Bobrow-Strain,
White
Bread:
A
Social
History
of
the
Store-Bought
Loaf
(Beacon, 2012), p. 4.

a
New
World
starch,
the
potato
Charles C. Mann,
1493:
Uncovering
the
New
World
Columbus
Created
(Alfred A. Knopf, 2011), p. 208.

Portuguese
broa de milho
: See a description of this bread on the blog “Azelia’s Kitchen,” www.azeliaskitchen.net/broa-northern-portu gal/.

famines
occurred
See Mann, 1493, p. 209. Also see Bernard Dupaigne,
The
History
of
Bread
(Harry N. Abrams, 1999), p. 38.

in
Russia,
four
million
to
seven
million
Richard Manning,
Against
the
Grain:
How
Agriculture
Has
Hijacked
Civilization
(Macmillan, 2004), p. 69.

the
grain
was
spelt
Patrick Faas,
Around
the
Roman
Table:
Food
and
Feasting
in
Ancient
Rome
(University of Chicago Press, 2005), p. 176.

the
origin
of
marble
rye
Stanley Ginsberg and Norman Berg,
Inside
the
Jewish
Bakery
(Camino Books, 2011), p. 57.

Hippocrates
Pliny the Elder,
The
Natural
History
, Book 18, chaps. 15, 26.

barley
sustained
soldiers
Ibid., Book 18, chap. 14. See also health benefits of barley at the Whole Grains Council: http://wholegrain scouncil.org/whole-grains-101/health-benefits-of-barley.

a
prison
riot
Kaplan, Bakers of Paris and the Bread Question, pp. 34–36.

With
every
100
grams
of
wheat
bran
See tables for “crude wheat bran” and “white wheat flour” in
USDA
National
Nutrient
Database
for
Standard
Reference,
Release
26.
Bran represents around 12 to 17 percent of the kernel.

Bakers
could
now
rely
The full and fascinating story of white bread can be found in Bobrow-Strain, White Bread.

Grasslands
cover
The 40 percent figure excludes Greenland and Antarctica. See J. M. Suttie, S. J. Reynolds, and C. Batello, eds.,
Grasslands
of
the
World
, Plant Production and Protection Series No. 34 (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, 2005).

Wild
wheat
and
barley
Michael Balter, “Seeking Agriculture’s Ancient Roots,”
Science
316.5833 (2007): 1830–35.

The
oldest
evidence
J. Mercader, “Mozambican Grass Seed Consumption During the Middle Stone Age,” Science 326.1680 (2009).

This
mutant
trait
George Willcox, “The Roots of Cultivation in Southwestern Asia,”
Science
341.6141 (2013): 39–40. See figure 3.

evolved
before
hulled
spelt
For a discussion of spelt’s separate evolution from free-threshing wheat, see Francesco Salamini et al., “Genetics and Geography of Wild Cereal Domestication in the Near East,” Nature Reviews Genetics 3.6 (2002): 429–41.

This
is
apparent
in
the
domestication
of
wheat
George Willcox’s Web site has an illuminating map of these remains. See http://g.willcox.pag esperso-orange.fr.

Domestication
accelerated
only
:
Balter, “Seeking Agriculture’s Ancient Roots.”

This
process
occurred
at
multiple
locations
Willcox, “Roots of Cultivation in Southwestern Asia.”

11,000-year-old
Syrian
site
George Willcox and Danielle Stordeur, “Large-Scale Cereal Processing Before Domestication During the Tenth Millennium Cal BC in Northern Syria,”
Antiquity
86.331 (2012): 99–114. The site is now covered by the waters of the Tishrine dam.

As
Klaus
Schmidt,
the
archeologist
Charles C. Mann, “The Birth of Religion,” National Geographic, June 2011. See also Ken-ichi Tanno and George Willcox, “How Fast Was Wild Wheat Domesticated?,”
Science
311.5769 (2006): 1886.

Along
with
einkorn,
emmer
Daniel Zohary and Maria Hopf,
Domestication
of
Plants
in
the
Old
World
, 3rd ed. (Oxford University Press, 2000). Zohary and Hopf discuss the origins of all the founder grains.

95
percent
of
all
wheat
CIMMYT, “Global Strategy for the Ex Situ Conservation with Enhanced Access to Wheat, Rye and Triticale Genetic Resources,” September 2007.

crossbred
with
other
nonspelt
T. Schober et al., “Gluten Proteins from Spelt (Triticum Aestivum Ssp. Spelta) Cultivars: A Rheological and Size-Exclusion High-Performance Liquid Chromatography Study,”
Journal
of
Cereal
Science
44.2 (2006): 161–73.

if
a
major
portion
of
the
wheat
crop
John H. Perkins,
Geopolitics
and
the
Green
Revolution:
Wheat,
Genes,
and
the
Cold
War
(Oxford University Press, 1997), p. v.

Chapter 5:
Turkey Red: Heritage Grains and the Roots of the Breadbasket

Rewind
to
1912
E. G. Heyne, “Earl G. Clark, Kansas Farmer and Wheat Breeder,”
Kansas
Academy
of
Sciences
59.4 (Winter 1956).

a
field
of
Turkey
Red
wheat
While often described as Ukrainian in origin, the seed originated in Crimea and did not reach Ukraine until 1860. A Mennonite immigrant to the United States, Bernard Warkentin, reportedly imported 25,000 bushels of the seed and planted them in several hundred test plots near his home. Alan L. Olmstead and Paul W. Rhode, “The Red Queen and the Hard Reds: Productivity Growth in American Wheat, 1800–1940,”
The
Journal
of
Economic
History
62.04 (2002): 929–66. See also Report of the Kansas State Board of Agriculture 39.15566: 218.

farmers
settling
the
Great
Plains
William Cronin,
Nature’s
Metropolis:
Chicago
and
the
Great
West
(W. W. Norton, 1991). See chap. 3 for a brilliant history of grain trade during this era.

He
and
his
wife,
Jane
Alan L. Olmstead and Paul W. Rhode,
Creating
Abundance:
Biological
Innovation
and
American
Agricultural
Development
(Cambridge University Press, 2008), pp. 26–27.