yeasts-msg – 6/7/08
Medieval use of yeast. Using it in the CMA.
NOTE: See also these files: BNYeast-art, bread-msg, beverages-msg, beer-msg, mead-msg, breadmaking-msg, leavening-msg.
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From: Richard Bainter <pug at interval.net>
Subject: Re: brewing yeasts
To: bryn-gwlad at eden.com
Date: Fri, 18 Oct 1996 09:08:45 -0500 (CDT)
> >I am hoping it will be worth it in just better taste. (Things sitting
> >around my house too long will start fermenting on the yeasts floating
> >around in the air from the amount of brewing of late.)
> Oh yuck. I can just see it now. Yeast growing on cheese, and milk and
> sausage and tea and... old shoes and...
Not that bad at all. Only had problems with juices left out.
> How do you keep the wrong yeasts from the wrong beverage?
You steralize and stop (lots of different methods) the yeasts in whatever
you are brewing. Then when you pitch the yeast you want and it has the
highest chance of taking hold. (You give it a head start by either using
liquid yeast or a yeast starter.)
> I'm assuming you are using different yeasts for beers, ales and wines.
And many different kinds. There is a good yeast FAQ at:
http://alpha.rollanet.org/library/yeast-faq.html
> You're not doing bread making are you?
Nope. My mother-in-law does that.
> Yes, with commercial yeasts you may not
> have to leave them open to the air for long, but..
Lots of people still use an open style fermintation. This means you just
leave it open and let whatever lands in it go. This works in places that
have high concentrations of the yeast you want. (And of course doing this
successfully means that the yeast then has a higher chance of being the
one you want due to it multiplying. Nice cycle.)
--
Phelim Uhtred Gervas | "I want to be called. COTTONTIPS. There is something
Barony of Bryn Gwlad | graceful about that lady. A young woman bursting with
House Flaming Dog | vigor. She blinked at the sudden light. She writes
pug at pug.net | beautiful poems. When ever shall we meet again?"
From: "Philip W. Troy" <troy at asan.com>
To: sca-cooks at eden.com
Date: Thu, 10 Apr 1997 20:27:16 -0400
Subject: Re: sca-cooks Greetings
Sharon L. Harrett wrote:
> A thread has been heating up on my other listserver and I would like
> to ask you all your opinions. The discussion is on "yeast", for brewing and
> baking. The argument seems to be split between those who believe that
> "yeast" was unknown in period and therefore should not be used in any
> authentic period cooking, baking or brewing. The other side is that although
> folks in period did not neccessarily call their leavening "yeast" we know
> now that most starters work because wild yeasts have taken up residence in
> them, and that therefore to ensure a quality product for SCA consumption it
> would not be a leap of logic to use packaged yeast for baking and brewing.
> Ceridwen
I don't see what the problem is with using commercial yeast. It provides
a reasonably sure, unmutated yeast culture that does the job with a
greater level of consistency than any sourdough can. Sourdough is a
southern European thing anyway, and while it is very ancient, you cannot
assume all baking was done that way. Northern European recipes generally
call for barm, which is a byproduct from brewing ale, using a
top-fermenting ale yeast.
While this must at one time have been developed from wild yeasts, the
ale recipes often call for adding an existing yeast starter. Considering
the amounts produced by some of the brewing recipes, and the records of
the disappointment expressed when a feast day's entire batch of ale or
beer turned out to be bad, I wouldn't think they'd want to mess around
taking chances
By the way, where do people think the little blocks of fresh yeast,
wrapped in foil, come from? If you read the label carefully, you'll
generally find that much of it is produced by a subsidiary of
Anheuser-Busch.
Q.E.D.
Adamantius
From: nweders at mail.utexas.edu (Nancy Wederstrandt)
To: sca-cooks at eden.com
Date: Fri, 11 Apr 1997 10:43:05 -0600
Subject: sca-cooks yeast in cooking
While I can't tell you the date of the recipe (it is during the 16th
century) it is taken from A Booke of Cookry.
To seeth Roches, Flounders, or Eeles.
Make ye good broth with new yest, put therin vergious, salt, percely, a little
time, and not much rosemary and pepper, so set it upon the fire and boile
it, and when it is well boyled put in the Roches, Flounders, Eeles and a
little sweet butter.
Almost all the sauce for fish include yeast, which I found interesting.
Many thanks to Katerine Rountre for her notes on yeast. They were what I
needed since I haven't started redacting yet. Next question is how do you
think the yeast was used....(what consistency)
Clare St. John
From: gfrose at cotton.vislab.olemiss.edu (Terry Nutter)
To: sca-cooks at eden.com
Date: Fri, 11 Apr 1997 13:44:41 -0500
Subject: sca-cooks yeast
Hi, Katerine here. Tibor said:
> Many thanks to Katerine Rountre for her notes on yeast. They were what I
> needed since I haven't started redacting yet. Next question is how do you
> think the yeast was used....(what consistency)
>
>Wow. I have NO ideas. I'd scoop up a tablespoon of ale barm from a bottle
>of home-made beer, and taste it. And see how it works. (Damn shame if I'd
>have to drink the beer to get to the barm, wouldn't it be? :-)
I don't know either. I do know that yeast and barm show up as *alternatives*
in some recipes, so there seems to have been some other form available; and
since using sourdough occurs rarely relative to yeast, I doubt that's it.
More than that, I can't say.
Cheers,
-- Katerine/Terry
From: MaryGraceB at aol.com
Date: Thu, 17 Apr 1997 15:34:43 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: SC - More on Yeast...for real this time
Ok guys....my mouse died and I am trying to learn to navigate without one
until I can get to the store to get another....so that is hopefully a
plausible excuse for sending out a message that did not have anything in
it....<g> Following is the message that I intended to send regarding the
yeast issue.
MGB
From: rayc at totcon.com (Ray Caughlin)
Another older timer and I spend a couple hours on the phone and she said
that I needed to inform people that yes yeast did exist during our societal
time period: in its wild and natural form. She continued to tell stories of
ways that our early ancestors used to harvest these yeastie beasties.
Alewives, would make rush brooms which they used only to stir their brew.
When not in use, they were hung near the open door way of their home. In
essence the broom was being soaked in the ale makings and then it collected
the wild yeast organism.
Toast or bread was added to some brews to impart "their flavor."
Our knowledge of yeast is modern. We know how to cultivate it and package
it. We have been able to break it down and discover that different forms of
yeast help produce food and beverages of varied kinds.
Taken from a work by Duke (?)Caraidoc and his Lady Wife, " Chemical
Leavenings
So far as we can discover, both baking soda and baking powder are far out
of period. According to the 1992 Old Farmer's Almanac, Saleratus (Potassium
Bicarbonate) was patented as a chemical leavening in 1840. Hartshorn
(Ammonium Carbonate) was used for stiffening jellies by about the end of
the sixteenth century (Wilson) but we have found no reference to its use as
a leavening agent prior to the late 18th century."
http://www.pbm.com/~lindahl/cariadoc/cooking_from_primary_sources.html
I think all will find this link filled with useful information concerning
food and cooking for the Society.
So I return to my statement that our ancestors had to gather the wild yeast
by creating leavenings or starters which encouraged the growth of these
wild wonders, but that yeast (by that name or as a purchasable product) did
not!
I am sorry if I stepped on anyone's toes by standing by my research, but if
I didn't believe it, I wouldn't have written it. This does prove that
having a host of awards after one's name does help. The you might have
realized that I have done a great deal of research concerning food and food
preparation.
Still active (like proofed yeast)
Lord Mandrigal of Mu, Master Oldenfeld Cooks Guild.
From: "Philip W. Troy" <troy at asan.com>
To: sca-cooks at eden.com
Date: Fri, 11 Apr 1997 16:26:50 -0400
Subject: Re: sca-cooks Greetings
Aonghas MacLeoid (B.G. Morris) wrote:
> Yeast, as we know it, would most definitely have been used in period times.
> To achieve the yeast, and rising of today, periods cooks would leave a bowl
> of flour, water (or milk) and sugar. This was used to collect *wild* yeast,
> that would form the basis for bread, with a *natural* rising take place. It
> is my opinion that medieval breads could be likened to *sour dough* bread.
>
> Regards,
> Ealasaid
The sourness of a given batch of sourdough starter depends on the number
of generations that have passed, and mutated, since the capture of the
original yeast. Wild yeasts of fairly recent vintage can still produce
a not-especially-sour dough. It is only when it is recycled quite a few
times that it becomes really sour, or in some cases, bitter. When it
reaches that stage it is (and presumably was, or may have been) common
practice to throw it away and start a new batch.
Adamantius
From: Deloris Booker <dbooker at freenet.calgary.ab.ca>
Date: Tue, 15 Apr 1997 15:20:15 -0600 (MDT)
Subject: SC - Re: sca-cooks Greetings
Re Yeast in period,
May I refer one and all to two books:
English bread and yeast cookery : Elizabeth David
Food in England : Huxley (long oout of print, but now available again in a
vastly overpriced edition from Little Brown)
Both books spend a lot of time on yeast in english cookery.
Aldreada of the lakes
From: Ilkka Heikki Salokannel <Rennes at xl.ca>
Date: Thu, 17 Apr 97 23:37:40 PDT
Subject: SC - Re yeast, chewets, and confits
Greetings Cooks,
Re Yeast: - You are quite correct in that the medieval cook
couldnt go to a store and buy a package of dried yeast BUT
both the word "yest" and "berme" or "barm" (ale yeast) were
used in medieval sources (to give just a few examples):
[Royal 17. A. iii MS. British Library, London. (c. 1370)] Ad
faciendum brakott - "...put therto newe berm..."
[MS BL Add. 5016 British Library, London (c. 1380) known as
Form of Cury ] Frytour of erbes - "... a lytel yest...";
Bragget - "... do gode berme aboue..."
[Rawlinson MS. D1222 Bodleian Library, Oxford (c.1380)]
Mynceleek - "...do theryn a litel berme or a litel sourdoug"
[Harleian Ms. 279. (c.1420)] Cryspey - "... a lytel
Berme..."; Fretoure - "take whete floure, Ale yest, Safroun,
& Salt..."; Rastons - "...than take warme Berme...".
[Holkham Collection (c. 1460) known as "A Noble Boke off
Cookry ffor a Prynce Houssolde of eny other Estately
Houssolde"] To mak rostand - "...a litill yest of new ale..."
Leavening could be done two ways in the Middle Ages by either
the sourdough method or by using the froth or "barm" from the
top of fermenting ale. This was "ale yest". (Beer yeast
ferments on the bottom.) They, of course, had no idea what
yeast was (first discovered by Louis Pasteur in the 19th
century). The "yeast" in the sourdough method was airborne
wild yeasts of two kinds in medieval Europe. In the north the
wild yeasts are what were later domesticated into modern
"ale" and "beer" yeasts. In the south the wild yeasts are
what become "wine" yeasts. As the temperature increased the
limit of grape growing and airborne wild "wine" yeast moved
north and the medieval climate was, on the whole, warmer than
modern day. Modern "bread" yeasts are derived from the
domestication of North American wild airborne yeasts.
(Sourdough yeasts for starters came from N.America to France
not the other way around.) Yeasts are differentiated by their
tolerance for alcohol - a toxic waste product to the yeast.
Here in N. America we can make very good sourdough without
buying expensive starter packages, but have to protect our
wine and beer during fermentation from wild yeasts. [I worked
in R&D for Wine-Art in the seventies and read my way around
an entire room of books about wine, wine history, wine
tasting, the chemical composition of wine, and yeasts. -
thought I should explain how I know this.]
Mistress Rowenna de Roncesvalles OL. OP
Barony of Lions Gate, Kingdom of An Tir
- -------------------------------------
Name: Ilkka Heikki Salokannel
E-mail: Ilkka Heikki Salokannel<Rennes at xl.ca>
From: Mark Schuldenfrei <schuldy at abel.MATH.HARVARD.EDU>
Date: Fri, 18 Apr 1997 12:48:49 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: Re: SC - Scottish Recipes
In some of my older German recipe books, an ingredient is called for that
translates as 'hartshorn'. It is used in place of baking powder. Is
there a zoologist out there who could tell us if grated deer antlers
would perform like baking powder or soda? If so, we could use the modern
substitute for health reasons.
If I recall correctly, hartshorn is an ammoniated equivalent to baking
powder, still available in England, and which produces a slightly different
flavor and texture.
Tibor
Date: Mon, 13 Oct 1997 11:46:50 -0400
From: Philip & Susan Troy <troy at asan.com>
Subject: Re: SC - beer bread recipe (was re: small feasts)
Par Leijonhufvud wrote:
> On Mon, 13 Oct 1997, Stephanie Rudin wrote:
>
> > gently and then dispose of the sediment. Would you want to keep that
> > sediment
> > when using it to cook with? Or is it just nasty stuff that should be
> > disposed of?
>
> It should be usable as a "substitute" for yeast (it is yeast:-). IIRC
> there are comments by Roman writers (with these words I hereby invoke the,
> Adamantius! ;-) that the Germans had bread that was much nicer that their
> own, without the sour taste and all.
Pliny the Elder, Historia Naturalis, IIRC, is what you are referring
to...the problem is that most of what comes to us as homebrew is
top-fermenting ale, and what sinks to the bottom is almost completely
dead yeast. You might be able to take a solution of water and sugar
(preferably malt extract or actual brewer's wort) and use that trub at
the bottom to create a live yeast starter. When you've got that, you can
skim some of the foamy glop off the TOP, and use that for leavening,
since it's now live yeast. Bear in mind that in period both brewing and
baking were not so much frequent events as constantly ongoing processes,
and the raw materials for one were regularly being produced by the
other.
Adamantius
Date: Mon, 13 Oct 1997 12:47:50 -0500
From: "Decker, Terry D." <TerryD at Health.State.OK.US>
Subject: RE: Re[2]: SC - beer bread recipe (was re: small feasts)
The Romans used grape must from wine making as bread leavening. This
produces a sourer leavening than the ale barm used by the German tribes.
If you do use the sediment, try "cleaning" it by mixing it with a cup
lukewarm water and a small pince of sugar. Keep the mixture warm and
decant the liquor when the yeast grows. Use the liquor for leavening.
To be honest, I haven't tried cleaning barm, but I'm working a deal with
a local brewer to get ale barm to experiment with cleaning and growing
it.
Bear
Date: Tue, 14 Oct 1997 00:07:41 -0400 (EDT)
From: Ladypeyton at aol.com
Subject: Re: Re: SC - beer bread recipe (was re: small feasts)
>You might be able to take a solution of water and sugar
>(preferably malt extract or actual brewer's wort) and use that trub at
>the bottom to create a live yeast starter. When you've got that, you can
>skim some of the foamy glop off the TOP, and use that for leavening,
>since it's now live yeast. Bear in mind that in period both brewing and
>baking were not so much frequent events as constantly ongoing processes,
>and the raw materials for one were regularly being produced by the
>other.
I'm fairly positive that beer yeast used to make bread will not have a taste
that you expect. Bear in mind that brewing & vinting yeasts are only
distant cousins of bread yeasts today. I tried a wine with a bread yeast as
an experiment. Yeuchhhh! I have never tried the reverse but I wouldn't be
surprised if the same yeuchhh result was the outcome. If you try it I would
be extremely interested in what your results were.
Peyton
Date: Tue, 14 Oct 1997 12:53:16 -0500
From: "Decker, Terry D." <TerryD at Health.State.OK.US>
Subject: RE: Re: SC - beer bread recipe (was re: small feasts)
There are many different kinds of yeast, each of which works best for
specific purposes. The brewers I know carefully choose their yeasts and
sterilize their carboys and equipment to reduce the possibility of
introducing wild yeast. For baking I tend to use dry active yeast
purchased by the pound and stored in a jar in the refrigerator. Trying
to swap one kind of packaged yeast for another usually doesn't work.
We know that for bread leavening the Romans used grape must, the
Germanic tribes used ale barm, and that ale barm continued to be used