I’m a sourdough bread baker. A true sourdough culture has wild yeast and lactobacilli in a symbiotic relationship. All leavened breads were sourdough prior to yeast’s discovery by Leeuwehoek in 1680 and Pasteur’s identification of their role in fermentation in 1857. The yeast studied by these two men was beer yeast, Saccharomyces cerevisiae, not the wild yeasts of sourdough cultures, usually Candida milleri or Saccharomyces exiguus. Modern bread yeasts are varieties of brewing yeasts selected for their fast rising properties, but do not impart the taste of sourdoughs. Some sourdough cultures have been collected and passed down for centuries in given localities. I am currently regularly baking with a Russian sourdough culture brought from a small village north of Moscow (Not Idaho; it’s not a FV culture!), where it was probably preserved and passed on for centuries.

The use of modern bread yeasts was impossible in the Bible, unless they used the residue left from beer fermentation to start their bread. Orthodox Jews would make no distinction between sourdough and bread yeast today.

I’ve wondered myself at the requirement to remove leaven from the house before the feast of unleavened bread. A new culture can be captured from the air without great difficulty; but individual sourdough cultures may have an unique and prized taste; and bakers are reluctant to lose them. So, I’ve wondered if in Jewish communities a bread culture might have been moved to an outside location, kept in a crock for the week of unleavened bread, and then brought back for use the next week. I’d like to ask someone knowledgeable of Jewish culture what the historic practice was.

__________________
Glenn Ferrell
Pastor, Sovereign Redeemer Presbyterian Church
OPC
Boise, Idaho