Australian Sourdough

What is Australian Sourdough?

At the end of a recent visit to Melbourne bakeries, we noticed a loaf of "San Francisco Sourdough" on display at a bakery chain in Melbourne. Now I have nothing against bakery chains. Really. They were very pleasent and let me take some photos for the site. I actually baked for a chain once and they were gracious when I left after only 2 weeks. But San Francisco Sourdough in Melbourne takes some getting used to.*1

It is just so damn insulting. Years of intuitive, heartfelt sourdough process in Melbourne, and this chain settles for easy sales from a big name. I mean it's not even real San Francisco Sourdough, unless they're importing San Franciscans. I spoke with John Downes the other day and he reminded me of studies suggesting that the saliva of San Francisco bakers is a source of San Francisco Sourdough's microbiology. *2

Yes, it could be so. Bakery chain customers protest! We want genuine San Francisco Sourdough with genuine San Francisco Saliva! Consumers reading this can relax. Prepared food is sometimes inadvertently garnished with saliva vapour from the person that prepared it. Bread eaters are fortunate because the oven is one big sterilising chamber (If you are eating uncooked foods, ask your chef to stop breathing).

So, "What is Australian sourdough?". The question was too big for me, which is why I made contact with John Downes. John has been making and selling sourdough in Australia since the late 1970's. His natural leaven technique helped define what sourdough is to a large percentage of consumers. John made his first sourdough intuitively after noticing apple juice fermenting in his restaurant. Rather than toss it, he used it as a base for leaven.

Interestingly, John thought that the quality of Australian flours was one distinguishing feature of our breads. An excerpt of what John said about flour is available here. John surprised me by talking about a time in Australia when sourdough was not called sourdough; it was simply "bread". It turns out that there was a time where the old bakers were not reliant on any external source for their yeast (including breweries). Australia actually had a period where white-sliced types were eating sourdough without knowing it (John is researching this history and a new book is on the horizon).

"Sourdough" is a word we got from America. In Australia, bread eaters learnt to associate this word with naturally leavened breads devoid of added chemicals. "Sourdough" is now being used to describe breads that don't fit this description. The word is becoming somewhat diluted as many consumers are not able to make a distinction between sourdough types: A sourdough is a sourdough is a sourdough. Not. Sourdough bakers know that there are distinctions. It is up to us to ensure that Australian bread eaters are aware of them.

This site is launching the Artisan Baker Association to keep bakers and consumers informed about artisan bread and sourdough in Australia.
If you would like to be a part of this pro-active network, please email Artisan Baker Association


*1 If you make a San Francisco Sourdough (in Australia) that is either the genuine article or an inspired variation that extends the genre, please let us know so that we can mention you on the site.

*2 Some quick research turned up this paper which looks at the influences of human microbiology on Lactobacillus sanfranciscensis. We will definitely open this paper up for discussion in the Research Forum.

* It is worth noting that some bakery chains, like Baker's Delight, make the ingredients of their products available from their web sites.