Bread of the Resistance: How to Make Sourdough Without Measuring

By Tessalyn Morrison

Build your own culture and resist! Making sourdough bread can be intimidating for most of us. The idea that we need to have exact measurements, the unforgiving nature of sourdough, and the fear of failure drive many of us from even attempting the time consuming process. In this book, Tess Morrison walks you through how to make sourdough bread, as well as a few other recipes that use fermentation, in a straightforward, understanding, and measurement-free guide with wonderful, clear illustrations showing every step of the process. The first half of the book is an introduction to the equipment, methods, and process—everything you need to know to start fermenting and baking. The second half contains recipes for crepes, crackers, and other delicious uses for your leftover starter, plus a wide variety of other measurement-free recipes for a wide variety of fermented and preserved foods, from yogurt to sauerkraut, tempeh to kombucha, and jam to salmon.In the process of making bread from scratch, with your own starter, your own hands, your own time, you will find that making bread is not only an act of creation, but an act of resistance. It is resistance against consumer culture and against a society that has devalued quality and tradition in favor of convenience. Making your own bread will help you practice these traditions and rebuild these lost virtues. Put away your measuring cups and scales and learn how to truly see the bread, reacting to its needs and your senses, and in the process, make something that is uniquely your own.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Microcosm Publishing LLC
• Release date: Sep 15, 2020
• ISBN: 9781621066927

Book preview

Bread of the resistance

How to Make Sourdough without Measuring

Part of the DIY Series

© Tessalyn Morrison, 2020

This edition © Microcosm Publishing, 2020

First Edition, first published, 2020

ISBN 978-1-62106-692-7

This is Microcosm #623

Designed by Joe Biel

Edited by Sarah Koch

If you bought this on Amazon, I’m so sorry because you could have gotten it cheaper and supported a small, independent publisher at www.Microcosm.Pub

For a catalog, write or visit:

Microcosm Publishing

2752 N Williams Ave.

Portland, OR 97227

[phone]

www.Microcosm.Pub

[ Contents ]

Introduction

Equipment

Flour

Water

Salt

Yeast & Other Additions

bowls

baking equipment

other items

dish towels

baskets

bench knife

scoring knife

jars

plastic versus paper

Methods

a pep talk

sourdough starter

poolish

Making and Baking

temperature and time

starting, prepping, and autolyzing

mixing, folding, and bulk fermentation

shaping and proofing

baking

creative modifications

how to move forward when things go wrong

Recipes for Discarded Starter

sourdough crepes

sourdough pancakes and waffles

sourdough crackers

sourdough oatmeal

Other Unmeasured Skills

yogurt

ricotta and paneer

sauerkraut

tempeh

salt cured salmon

cultured butter

jam

kombucha

kvass

Additional Unmeasured Recipes

granola

salad dressing

aioli

Appendices

grain cooking time

natural pectin amounts

metric to standard

Acknowledgements

Index

About the Author

[ Introduction ]

Bread is resistance. Its fibers are woven with gluten which captures gas, buttressing the structure, despite our aggressive kneading and firing. Bread will resist you. In learning how to make her, you will inevitably fail. Worms will make a nest of your flour, refrigerators will break and leak. you will forget rising bread in all sorts of places. But, as a partner, bread will impress and surprise you. Most days, she will rise and behave, tripling from your efforts, forming into a crunchy, fluffy, chewy mound of love. Waking to make her and meet her becomes a privilege.

Making sourdough is an act of resistance against rush culture. We are under constant pressure to do things faster and more efficiently. We are put in constant competition with others. Given a moment of solitude, many of us turn to our phones for entertainment and connection. Making bread will reactivate your hands and connect you with yourself and the physical world. It will remind you that patience is a worthwhile investment.

Becoming a maker is an act of resistance against prescribed roles of being a consumer and a haver. The process of making bread will remind you of how fortunate we are to have things made for us, that using shortcuts on food production can reduce quality and nutrition. Making sourdough is an act of resistance against values of wealth. A loaf of sourdough bread has a material cost of $0.40. A loaf of plain white bread hasn’t cost less than $0.50 since the 1970s. Making sourdough is a process that all people can participate in. It makes healthy living more accessible for people with limited means.

Making sourdough without measurements is an act of resistance against traditional gender roles. Today, yesterday, for our whole lives, women have been mothers, housewives, and maybe good cooks, while men are considered chefs. Famous male chefs often cite their mothers as the inspiration behind their best recipes, but cite men as their mentors. In science, doctoring is still masculine, while healing and caring are feminine. Loving is feminine. Baking is feminine. There’s nothing to cite on these points except our shared knowledge of the way gender roles have traditionally functioned in society. Bakers can be anyone, but the bakers who write the big books on sourdough are men. The secret recipes that grandmothers hold in their memories have given women power over the centuries—the power to mystify and the power to soothe. When I show up to a party with a homemade loaf of bread, or a peer brings it up in conversation on night shift at the hospital, I always get the same impressed reaction, which doubles when I tell them I made it without a recipe. For me, bread is a source of empowerment and strength.

The purpose of this book is to teach you how to make sourdough bread without having to use scales or measuring cups. This process frees you to react to