On Wed, 27 Sep 2006 15:09:24 -0400, "Jeff Miller"
> wrote:

>> I suspect that it is in French, as in English, a borrowed
>> word from somewhere else - perhaps Eastern Europe?
>
>Well, I'm pretty sure American bakers borrowed the term from French bakers?
>As far as where the French got the term ...

From Eastern Europe, as I originally surmised, but I only found that
out after what you wrote below set me thinking, and so I searched
around a bit.

>>From what I've read (primarily Jeff Hammelman's "Bread" and Peter Reinhart's
>"Bread Baker's Apprentice"), it seems the term came into use because it was
>believed that the technique was developed by a Polish baker.

Exactly. This is what I found:

<http://www.supertoinette.com/fiches_recettes/fiche_poolisch.htm>

Specifically "Mot d'origine polonaise désignant une pte liquide, une
bouillie faite d'une proportion égale de farine, d'eau et de levure
biologique".

>I've also read
>that the technique was developed in Vienna and brought to France in the late
>19th / early 20th century. Why it's called "poolish" instead of "polonais,"
>I have no idea.

I do - I think that in fact it must have come from Poland, but is not
Polish, but rather *Yiddish*. That would explain the "sh" ending, or,
in the spelling given on the web site I found, "isch".

Thanks for setting me in the right direction - I too, was always very
curious to know where that word came from, as I was certain that it
wasn't French.