Mike Avery wrote:
> On 25 Jan 2006 17:57:22 -0800, Will > wrote:
> >
> >
> > Back to your starter question... I think that the origin of the starter
> > is orders of magnitude less important than how it is maintained and
> > amplified for dough. I have a small stable of starters that I have
> > built or acquired over the years.
>
>
>
> I tend to agree with an earlier poster that the number of critters in the
> flour is so small that they won't take over a healthy culture. Of ocurse,
> many hobbyists don't have healthy cultures.
>
> Still, the flour IS important. Flour is not a readilly quantifiable
> substance. It's made from different wheat strains, grown in different
> areas, and it is different. And these differences are important to the
> final product. More ash will tend to produce a more sour bread.
>
> What an organism eats can affect its taste. For instance, French farmers
> force feed their geese special foods and herbs to make the goose liver taste
> better for making pate. American hunters prize boars that have been eating
> acorns. Many nursing mothers can attest that their babies can tell when
> mom's been eating food that's too spicy.
>
> If a macro-organism can be changed in a short period by what it eats, I have
> no trouble believing a micro-organism can also be changed.
>
> If you want to make bread like Jone's bakery, it may be more important to
> find out what kind of flour they are using and how they make the bread than
> to get some of their starter. If you are trying to makea San Francisco
> style bread, you probably want some Giusto's flour. They are on-line and
> they do ship. http://www.giustos.com
>
> You might also want to look at Samartha's home page, he has put the formula
> and process Dr. Sugihara got from the San Francisco bakeries on-line. It
> works very nicely, even without Guisto's flour. (One of these days, I'll do
> the same. The formula, and good text, was in the April 1970 Baker's
> Digest.) Look at http://www.samartha.net/SD/recipes/SF-01.html
>
> Mike

Am I right in understanding that you're talkinga about changing the
flavour of the bread rather than the flora in the (healthy) culture
here Mike?

TG