The story of the very first person – perhaps an Egyptian circa 3000 B.C. – who had the idea to knead the very first dough made from ground grains (i.e. flour with water) will forever remain a mystery. Further doubt is cast upon who invented the leavening process for dough – the act of letting it rise and increase in volume for a softer, honeycombed texture once baked. And above all, we don’t even know who discovered the Italian lievito madre – the most delicious mystery of them all! After all, Italian gastronomy features a history in which the main protagonists knew nothing about technical chemical processes, fermentation or bacilli. Like the women who – especially in the Italian South – “bred” their own mother yeast sourdough starters for centuries, giving life to the world of breadmaking and even pizza in Italy. And despite the rhythms of life today, this is a thread of history that remains uninterrupted. Laura Pappacoda, a young agricultural researcher from Cava de' Tirreni (Salerno), is well aware of this. She is passionate about cooking and baking and has a very special “helper” in the kitchen: a 168-year-old Italian mother yeast sourdough starter.
Continuous feeding
"It was given to me eight years ago by chef Sara Papa at the end of a course on baking; it comes from Calabria and has been handed down from generation-to-generation by her family," says Laura Pappacoda. This particular mother yeast was born in 1848, when Milan rose up against the Austrians, the First War of Independence broke out and the Gran 48 exploded all over Europe. According to Pappacoda, her sourdough starter is of the Matusalem mother yeast variety, featuring a "solid format – the classic 'ball' that I keep in the fridge. When I do not use it, every 5-6 days, I renew it by removing it from the refrigerator and after one hour, I add a quantity of flour equal to its weight, and half the amount of water. Then I mix everything again.” Once finished with this part of the feeding process, Laura continues: "I let it rise for 1-2 hours and then I put it back in the fridge in a container covered with a cloth. I only wash it with water – or vinegar at most; a soap or detergent would actually damage the bacterial flora that the yeast feeds on.” When the yeast is used in recipes, however, "the process is carried out more frequently, or each time I use it.”
The problem with bacteria
Technically, the mother yeast does not "live" on its own. Rather, it lives on the bacteria that the yeast is made from, which must be continuously fed and allowed to reproduce with periodic “feedings.” Certainly, making a mother yeast live so long requires a certain experience and great practicality: "Since I was a child, I was fascinated by how my grandmother would knead the bread and put it back in her old cupboard, finding the dough leavened the next morning. For me it was magic, and since then, I’ve never stopped baking bread at home – with my grandmother and my mother.”
How to use it, dough after dough
Yeast has always been considered throughout history to possess that magic Laura refers to – even after it was "desacralized" by Louis Pasteur between 1857 and 1863 (our yeast was already 9-15 years old by then!), who discovered that the fermentation was caused by living microorganisms. And today, despite finding itself living among radically different and accelerated rhythms of life, mother yeast starters like this one stay connected to a past that will continue to live on. In fact, this particular mother yeast is still used for many recipes even today: "I use it to bake bread at home, by hand. But I also use it for pizza, cakes, focaccia and our typical bread biscuits.” In fact, this mother yeast – the ‘criscito’ of Campania tradition – is one of the secrets to Neapolitan pizza: "To prepare a homemade pizza, I start working on the dough at least one day before baking. First, I make a dough and let it rest in the fridge for one night. Then I take it out and wait until it’s acclimated to room temperature and I work it again, folding and turning it about three times – at intervals of about 15-20 minutes. Then I prepare the various buns, which I let rise for about 4-5 hours, though this very much depends on the season and the temperature. For example, in summer, everything is done much quicker before making the actual pizza.” It’s the same for breadmaking, too; Pappacoda says "the process starts the day before” for leavened dough.
Easier to digest
In essence, mother yeast sourdough starter is a return to ritual – a way of following nature’s rhythms. Of course, it can be difficult to match these “rhythms” to the actual work needed for bread and other dough recipes. "But, if you’re organized, anyone can do it – by kneading before leaving the house and then baking once you get home, for example,” says Pappacoda. Generally speaking, Pappacoda explains that “where a normal store-bought brewer's yeast takes a couple of hours to rise, the mother yeast takes 6-8 hours.” The advantages of baking with a sourdough starter are considerable, however: “Better and more genuine products, first of all. But also a different consistency, usually with a less honeycombed texture. And, above all, it’s easier to digest. My advice? Even when you buy a yeast at the supermarket, be wary of products that promise to rise too quickly; in fact, this kind of yeast can never fully activate in so little time – so it continues to do so in our stomachs, making digestion more complicated and creating the sensation of heaviness.”