Yeasty Tales

I don’t know if it’s the change of season, a change in attitude brought on by impending fatherhood, or just something that’ll need to be treated with a course of anti-fungals, but I’ve found many of my recent kitchen exploits have involved the manipulation of yeast. From brewing beer, to kneading dough for pizza bases, to growing my own sourdough culture from scratch, these beneficial little bacteria have been weaving their magic on much of the food coming out of my kitchen.


The sourdough is the most exciting thing I’m doing at the moment. I got the recipe from a great cookbook called Moro, which has fantastic dishes from around the Mediteranean coastline, with a particular focus on Moorish Spain and Morocco. It involves combining a bunch of organically grown grapes with a certain amount of unbleached flour and rain water, then allowing it ferment in an air-tight container over a couple of weeks. The naturally occurring yeasts that live on the grapes’ skins start to feed on the flour and, with careful nurturing, they’ll eventually grow into a population (your yeast “culture”) large enough to make bread rise.

Although the first stages of the process demand continuous attention, with the culture needing to be fed twice a day, every day for up to six weeks, it’s worth the slog. Once you’ve established a healthy, thriving culture, it only needs topping up (feeding) once a week and has the potential to last generations and even centuries if treated well. I’ve heard stories of women in some cultures being gifted with a portion of their mother-in-law’s family sourdough culture on their wedding day. What better way to say “welcome to the family” than incorporating the newcomer into a tradition spanning back centuries?

There’s also a sense of smug satisfaction to be derived from creating a whole new organism that has such a practical application in the workings of a household. Actually, the yeast is a particular species of bacterium, so the sourdough culture is made up of billions of individual organisms, all working in concert to a common end. It’s a real symbiotic relationship between culture and host, and as long as they’re regularly fed with a bit of flour and water, they’ll happily continue to do their thing long after I’m gone from this earth.

This cultivation of a sourdough culture ties in closely to my… I guess you could call it a “mission statement”, of aiming to instill as much ‘integrity’ into my cooking as possible. That is, the origins of all the ingredients are traceable, and as much as possible can be proven to have been produced using ethical and ecologically sound methods. To this end, I try to use Lauke’s Wallaby Flour, as it is produced nearby in the Barossa Valley, along with my own sourdough culture grown from local organic grapes and rain water collected in my own tanks (if only it would rain again). In this way, I can ensure my contribution to harmful farming practices that employ unsustainable irrigation methods or destructive chemical fertilisers or pesticides is minimised. Not only can I sleep better at nights, my health and that of my family’s is to some extent protected, while local ethical industries are supported.

OK, I’ll climb down off my high horse now. The most convincing argument I can make in support of raising a sourdough culture is the quality of the bread it produces. Although my efforts are still in their infancy and I still have to master the intricacies of my wood-fired oven, the bread has a unique and truly satisfying characteristic and lasts much longer than its shop-bought counterpart. It’s also far cheaper than buying a loaf of bread at your local mega-market, as well as far more satisfying at a really basic level. You’re producing a staple of the household diet, rather than relying on said conglomeratefor your basic needs.

For more information, check out this great website, dedicated to all things sourdough . I'll try to photograph the process as it evolves and will post the photos as they come.
Watch this space...