Sourdough is in my heart. So is yogurt. My mum got me started, so we can all blame her.
We all love historicals, right? I guess so, or you probably wouldn’t be here on this page.
Contents
Sourdough and Fermentation
For many hundreds (thousands) of years, people have been using fermentation of various sorts to improve or prolong the useful life of their foods (think beer, ale, bread, sourkraut, pickling, etc). Indeed, to prolong their own life, they used fermentation… the water wasn’t safe to drink in many places and even children drank ale or beer instead.
My heroines and others in my stories tend to make sourdough bread. The old miners in California were ever called Sourdoughs because it was so commonplace in the ’49’er’s life. Sometimes it was the only thing they had to care for and keep warm! There’s an old “Sourdough” who shows up to Aleksandra’s family’s cabin when she’s only a little girl.
Aleksandra herself makes a hearty rye sourdough as well as a potato sourdough, from which she makes Zurek. Yummmmmmm. If you’ve ever been to Poland, you’ll understand my obsession with Zurek. I’m so obsessed that it became the recipe inside the back of my first novel, A Long Trail Rolling. It’s my own recipe, gleaned from the many I’ve tried to make! Thanks Elliot, for tolerating my need to try the different forms of Zurek in nearly every Polish town we entered.
You DO know there’s a recipe in the back of each of my books, right? Well, there is. :)
Sourdough and Yogurt Starters
I grew up making sourdough breads and yogurt (Thanks Mum), and eat homemade yogurt every morning with my uncooked oats, raisins and nuts. As I recently discovered my body is much happier when gluten free, I started playing with my sourdough starter and GF flours, as well as letting my sourdough starter buggies eat up the gluten in regular flour. Both seemed to work for me. I’m not deathly GF, so I get away with it, it seems. 🙂
SO today I looked up gluten free sourdough starter and look what I found?
But wait, there’s more! Not just sourdough, but a plethora of other fermented foods!
I’ve had a little-used bottle (Thank you, Trudy!) of water kefir grains, which I had NO idea what to do with her, despite Trudy’s airy wave and “you just drink it” when I asked. 🙂 (sorry T, guess I’m just dense!) Now I see there’s a book for it, and even better, it’s free!
Not just that, there are a whole handful of free eBooks to be had at this wonderful site!
Couldn’t wait to join!
SO here you go!
Sourdough and Fermentation: Free eBooks!
Check it out. I just joined their newsletter list and got my free ebooks:
NEW! Gluten-free Sourdough eBook
Lacto Fermentation eBook
Water Kefir eBook
Milk Kefir eBook
Yogurt eBook
Kombucha eBook
Cheesemaking eBook
Sourdough eBook
Have a wonderful day, get baking and fermenting, and enjoy!
xx
Lizzi Tremayne