It’s the yeast you can do
All you need is salt, water, flour and a tolerant nose
On the second day of my salt- rising bread experiment, I awoke to a distinctive aroma wafting down the hall from the kitchen. I had left a slurry of whole milk, Red Fife flour and sea salt in a warm water bath under the watchful eye of the oven light. Seventeen hours later — frothy and active, with a smell at the crossroads of Limburger and Époisses — the rising was ready.
Reminiscent of the stinkiest cheeses on Earth, salt- rising bread originated in the backwoods of 19th- century North America. Fresh yeast was hard to come by, and bread starters needed the right conditions and regular feedings to flourish. Rather than risk being left without bread should their yeast supply run out, rural cooks devised a plan B.
A means of snaring and cultivating naturally occurring yeast and bacteria, Toronto-based culinary historian Fiona Lucas says, salt-rising was one such trap. “As long as you had the basics — salt, flour and water — you could do it.”
Today, with dry yeast in short supply, many are turning to yeastless flatbreads and quick breads for their quarantine baking. But if it’s a classic sandwich loaf you’re after, the obscure salt-rising bread holds promise for open-minded home bakers.
“It’s really nice and dense, so it works well as toast. Don’t expect a light, airy loaf. But if you like some solidity and chewiness to your bread, which I do, then it’s perfect for that. The only thing that people have to be cautioned with is it can have an odd smell,” says Lucas.
Unlike other innocuous lockdown baking endeavours, such as banana bread or chocolate chip cookies, salt- rising bread has the power to disgust or delight. As Harold Mcgee put it in issue 11 of Lucky Peach, the once- common fermentation method ebbs on “the far shores of edibility.” Its pungent scent carries from the sponge to the finished bread itself. When it was baking, the aroma was so strong I can only compare it to someone holding an aged Parmesan rind under my nose.
The link between salt-rising bread and odoriferous cheeses can be explained by the science of fermentation. The intense and lingering scent that filled much of my apartment is due to the bacterium Clostridium perfringens ( C. perfringens). Specifically, its by-products: propionic acid, responsible for giving Emmentaler and other Swiss-style cheeses their flavour and eyes ( holes); and butyric acid, which contributes to the taste of Parmesan, ghee and butter.
Besides being responsible for the bread’s character, C. perfringens also acts as a rising agent. Despite what its name implies, Lucas explains, salt contributes to the bread’s flavour and limits the bacteria that are able to grow, but doesn’t play a role in leavening (salt actually inhibits yeast growth).
You can rest assured that “hundreds of thousands” of hinterland housewives found success with salt- rising and similar methods, says Lucas. As she and co- editor Nathalie Cook write in Catharine Parr Traill’s The Female Emigrant’s Guide: Cooking with a Canadian Classic, salt- rising was an essential skill for 19th- century settlers in Canada and the U. S. But it was Traill’s instructions — in her 1836 book The Backwoods of Canada — that go down in history as the first published in North America.
Given she “shirks on some of the details,” says Lucas, it follows that Traill herself probably wasn’t the biggest fan of salt-rising bread. As she wrote in The Backwoods of Canada, “the peculiar flavour it imparts to the bread renders it highly disagreeable to some persons.”
Settlers commonly prepared yeast for bread- making using salt- rising, hops ( hop- rising) or liquid beer yeast, or by cultivating wild yeast using flour gruels, Lucas explains. These processes are “now a mostly forgotten taste and technique.” By baking salt- rising bread today, we’re making the most of yeast shortages by drawing on the micro-organisms around us and the skills honed by past generations of North American women.
“I love the idea that it was something that was done by these inventive women in the backwoods. That even if they had nothing else to feed their children, they still had this one thing,” says Lucas.
Odour aside, the dough is a delight to work with — smooth and supple — and the resulting bread is assertive and tender. Cutting through the crisp mahogany crust, I was surprised by how pale the close crumb was.
A slice of salt-rising bread makes superlative toast, and is the ideal vehicle for a sandwich. More than that, it’s proof that dabbling in an unfashionable fermentation method can bring enduring rewards.