This fall I've been learning how to bake bread. I like sourdough, so I've been learning how to make real sourdoughs using a starter. The starter is the nameless yeast colony that spends most of its life in an old salsa jar in the fridge. Mixing the starter with more flour and water, and letting the yeasts grow at room temperature, they eat and as a byproduct produce the small air pockets that you want for good texture in bread. After a while the jar the starter lives in gets encrusted with flour (the main food of a pet yeast), and I will move the starter into a new jar and wash out the old one.
I used to feel sorry for the yeasts who were left behind in the old jar, which were washed down the drain rather than moved to their new home. Then I realized that the ones that stay get to either be baked alive, or have a chance to reproduce so their offspring can be baked alive, whereas the ones that get washed down the drain escaped their captivity to have a chance, presumably, of reproducing in freedom somewhere out there and keeping their genes going through all eternity.
I wish the yeasts the best of luck out there.
posted 2008/10/24 16:32 [category: bitbashing / baking]
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