July 2, 2012 - 11:56pm
Oregon Trail sourdough
Was getting tired of challah, struan, and ciabatta, so revived my frozen, powdered Oregon Trail sourdough and made pain au levain using the recipe in Peter Reinhart's Artisan Breads. Took three days but WOW! I wouldn't have believed that plain flour, water, and salt could taste so good.
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So to link with the other thread in this topic, do you think your revival of the 150-yr old sourdough culture is truly a 150 yr old culture? Or just a naturally occurring sourdough? Would a naturally occurring sourdough taste as good as your 150 yr old culture? How much sentiment goes into the Oregon Trail notion?
I think it quite likely that the culture has "evolved" over the long years, and may well have evolved more when grown in Honolulu. I haven't tried making my own sourdough starter (being lazy) so I can't compare Honolulu-naturally-occuring to powdered-Friends-of-Carl. However, I do know that the sour was delightful and reminded me of the sourdough French bread I used to enjoy when I lived in San Francisco.
I have six cultures
One is Carls
It is distinctly different than my other ( self derived from various places) 5, and of those each one is and has remained distinctly different
I would think in my heart of hearts they would change, morph, whatever
They all get weekly rotations
The same routines and conditions, but different days " out"
I refuse to believe anything else but that mine is the Carl's that came on the Oregon Trail
each one of my cultures has a story
I really hope I can pass this on
Ortiz cumin starter. Now I have Joe, Water and Sour :-) Sour was started in 1973 with milk and WW, but has been evolving into the rye sour puss it is today - after being nearly killed scores of times and combined with who knows what :-)