The best part of my job, besides the inspiring young minds and molding future leaders, is the reasonable amount of traveling I get to do. Unlike jobs that involve selling people things they don't need, convincing people they are inadequate and need things they can't afford or advising people to buy things and sell them at excessive markups, when travel I go somewhere to learn something new. You really can't beat that. So, when I had the chance to attend the Popular Culture/American Culture Association's annual conference in San Francisco I was thrilled. I used to live in Southern California and had only been to Oakland once for job interviews, so I only got to sample a bit of the local cuisine. So, on my second visit to NoCal, I made sure to schedule time to eat locally.
I was practically doing summersaults when I discovered that the Boudin Sourdough Bakery in the tourist-infested Pier 39/Wharf included a SOURDOUGH HISTORY MUSEUM! I heart museums more than most things, but to include local food in the mix--I was on cloud nine, which was good because I could pretend that I didn't just pay $14 bucks for a teeny,tiny cosmotini in the hotel bar. What's the local word for total rip-off? Luckily, the museum is a wonderful post-cocktail tour of the settling of San Francisco from the railroad days to the Gold Rush to the unionization of sourdough bread bakers. The glorious present is represented by the bird's eye view of bakers in their most professional whites making cuddly, sourdough bread bears with raisins for eyes. It's too adorable for words; so adorable, that I could easily forget that the hotel's valet charged $40 a night. (When you move from major metropolitan areas to a low cost of living place like Oklahoma City, you forget that anything costs money. You mean I can't buy this 2400-square-foot penthouse for $120,000? But that's how much it costs in Oklahoma)
Away from the economic downturn and mortgage meltdown and back to the sourdough bread...If you didn't know already, sourdough bread gets its wonderfully tart taste from the pungent starter yeast used to make it. The starter is mixed in with the regular dough and allowed to rise. A good starter can be more than one hundred years old and the bacteria in the mixture of fresh flour and water. The details of it are very scientific and, like I tell my students when I don't know the answer to their questions, "beyond the scope of this lesson." The point is that it's kinda gross when you think about it and so good when you eat it.
I was most impressed by the Sourdough Museum's inclusion of noted African-American San Franciscans who helped build the city, as well as the labor history associated with the baker's union. And after being teased with stories of gold, earthquakes and really old bacteria, you get to taste some bread! It's a brilliant time.
Sourdough bread may be an acquired taste considering how sweet standard white, or even wheat bread is these days. Due to our good friend high fructose corn syrup, HiFru for short, we can't get enough of sweet, so our taste buds go through a little cognitive dissonance when we eat something chewy and full of carbs but lacking in sweetness. Sourdough has become increasingly national as chains like Panera started serving soups in sourdough bowls. The crispness of the crust allows it to remain leakproof when holding clam chowder, spinach dip, and other treats. The best way to enjoy sourdough is a plain, ol' slice, in order to appreciate the complexity of the flavor. The initial bite gives your mouth a slight kick before the bread itself melts in your mouth. It's a pretty cool sensation.
Happy Eating!
2 comments:
Sourdough is an art. I received a sourdough starter one time, but the care and feeding of the starter alone was so time-consuming that I gave up before I even had a chance to make a loaf. In our Panera-infected world, people don't appreciate how complex it is to make fine bread.
Where did you get the starter from?
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