INNOVATIONS in bread baking are rare. In fact, the 6,000-year-old process hasnt changed much since Pasteur made the commercial production of standardized yeast possible in 1859. The introduction of the gas stove, the electric mixer and the food processor made the process easier, faster and more reliable. Im not counting sliced bread as a posit

>...More bread and circuses from the Democratic policy establishment, it seems. They also want to raise taxes in an already-stressed economy, which will guarantee that the dwindling capital for investment in Michigan will now dwindle faster. Despite this, the Democrats want to buy i-Pods for students while hiking the tax burden on their parents...>

Sourdough (or, more formally, natural leaven or levain) refers to the process of leavening bread by capturing wild yeasts in a dough or batter, as opposed to using a domestic, purpose-cultured yeast such as Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Sourdough more specifically refers to a symbiotic culture of lactobacilli and yeasts, giving a distinctively tangy or sour taste (hence its name), due mainly to the lactic acid and acetic acid produced by the lactobacilli. Though no longer the standard method for bread leavening in most developed countries (it was gradually replaced first by the use of barm from beermaking, then after the confirmation of germ theory by Louis Pasteur by cultured yeasts), some form of natural leaven is used in many specialty bakeries.Sourdough bread is made by using a small amount (20-25%) of "starter" dough (sometimes known as "the mother sponge"), which contains the yeast culture, and mixing it with new flour and water. Part of this resulting dough is then saved to use as the starter for the next batch. As long as the starter dough is fed flour and water daily, the sourdough mixture can stay in room temperature indefinitely and remain healthy and usable. It is not uncommon for a baker's starter dough to have years of history, from many hundreds of previous batches. As a result each bakery's sourdough has a distinct taste. The combination of starter, yeast culture and air temperature, humidity, and elevation also makes each batch of sourdough different.