Bread production relied on the use of sourdough as a leavening agent for most of human history, but the use of baker’s yeast as a leavening agent dates back less than 150 years. However, humankind’s cultivation of grain and its use of wild yeast as a leavening agent in bread making is an ancient baking tradition that dates far back into antiquity.
This article has been moved to Abigail’s Oven Blog. If you would like to read this brief history of natural sourdough leavening through the ages, click here:
I have one starter that came in the trek West with Utah Pioneers, another from the Klondike Gold Rush, one from San Francisco, another from the Czech Republic, and I have a new one, dubbed Riverside Lodge COVID-19, that I started in March, 2020.