I'll confess that part of the journey which took me from tech post-Y2K, to becoming a professional pastry cook (2001 - 2007), was a protracted battle with sourdough. At one time, the top shelf of...
I'll confess that part of the journey which took me from tech post-Y2K, to becoming a professional pastry cook (2001 - 2007), was a protracted battle with sourdough. At one time, the top shelf of the 'fridge had eight sourdough cultures, each based on a different method or yeast strain, complete with lab notebook and spreadsheets. The need for control isn't necessarily gender-linked.
What the "professional" baking part taught me is that ingredients and tools have inherent variability. Unlike the paradigms of analytical chemistry or engineering, good bread is generally difficult to make according to six-sigma process control. Yeasts are living organisms, ovens aren't perfectly uniform, flour is a complicated biological product, water has uncertain mineral content, air temperature and humidity aren't fully controllable. It takes experience and practice to manage the chaos of nature. In the culinary school baking class, I was literally reduced to tears when asking an instructor how long a loaf should bake, and being told, "Until it's done."
After all that, I find myself somewhat confounded by the article's mentioned attempts to make bread baking algorithmically repeatable. Nice in theory, but cooking can be more enjoyable when approached as craft, and as a means of reconnecting with other people through enjoyment of food.
One of the eight batches, cultivated from this, made an ugly, dense, gray-crumbed (e.g. over-fermented) loaf, with truly divine flavor, aroma, and crust which I've never replicated or had anything...
One of the eight batches, cultivated from this, made an ugly, dense, gray-crumbed (e.g. over-fermented) loaf, with truly divine flavor, aroma, and crust which I've never replicated or had anything like since.
The main thing I learned about sourdough is that it's a lifestyle commitment. You have to be prepared to use it, feed it, talk to it, and pamper it on a daily basis, preferably from a set of restaurant-sized Cambro bins, not quart Mason jars. Anthony Bourdain's Kitchen Confidential introduces you to "Adam Last-Name-Unknown", the buccaneering baker whose sourdough "Feed the b*tch" rant is a scene-stealer.
Aside from the sourdough experiments, the Pane Dolci di Zucca recipe from The Italian Country Table was one of the best things I ever baked, though it destroyed three KitchenAid mixers (the cheap ones with plastic gears and no-reset thermal sensors).
Both the bread and the knowledge were entirely worthwhile.
I'll confess that part of the journey which took me from tech post-Y2K, to becoming a professional pastry cook (2001 - 2007), was a protracted battle with sourdough. At one time, the top shelf of the 'fridge had eight sourdough cultures, each based on a different method or yeast strain, complete with lab notebook and spreadsheets. The need for control isn't necessarily gender-linked.
What the "professional" baking part taught me is that ingredients and tools have inherent variability. Unlike the paradigms of analytical chemistry or engineering, good bread is generally difficult to make according to six-sigma process control. Yeasts are living organisms, ovens aren't perfectly uniform, flour is a complicated biological product, water has uncertain mineral content, air temperature and humidity aren't fully controllable. It takes experience and practice to manage the chaos of nature. In the culinary school baking class, I was literally reduced to tears when asking an instructor how long a loaf should bake, and being told, "Until it's done."
After all that, I find myself somewhat confounded by the article's mentioned attempts to make bread baking algorithmically repeatable. Nice in theory, but cooking can be more enjoyable when approached as craft, and as a means of reconnecting with other people through enjoyment of food.
Was it worth it?
(I mean the bread, not the knowledge)
One of the eight batches, cultivated from this, made an ugly, dense, gray-crumbed (e.g. over-fermented) loaf, with truly divine flavor, aroma, and crust which I've never replicated or had anything like since.
The main thing I learned about sourdough is that it's a lifestyle commitment. You have to be prepared to use it, feed it, talk to it, and pamper it on a daily basis, preferably from a set of restaurant-sized Cambro bins, not quart Mason jars. Anthony Bourdain's Kitchen Confidential introduces you to "Adam Last-Name-Unknown", the buccaneering baker whose sourdough "Feed the b*tch" rant is a scene-stealer.
Aside from the sourdough experiments, the Pane Dolci di Zucca recipe from The Italian Country Table was one of the best things I ever baked, though it destroyed three KitchenAid mixers (the cheap ones with plastic gears and no-reset thermal sensors).
Both the bread and the knowledge were entirely worthwhile.