History chapter review (#198)

* Add intro to history chapter

* Improve paragraph breakdown

Hopefully slightly less dense to read.
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cedounet
2023-08-27 10:00:59 +01:00
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parent d3cd2e7894
commit 0bbea33152
2 changed files with 23 additions and 10 deletions

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@@ -22,7 +22,6 @@
\mainmatter
\chapter{The history of sourdough}
\input{history/sourdough-history}
\chapter{How sourdough works}

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@@ -1,3 +1,14 @@
\chapter{The history of sourdough}%
\label{ch:history}
\begin{quoting}
We will start this book by briefly talking about the long history of
sourdough bread from ancient time, and how people used similar process for
other food like beer. The discovery of yeast and how, together with
machine development, revolutionized bread making. More recently
communities formed around sourdough and home baking, trying to relearn
lessons from the past.
\end{quoting}
Sourdough has been made since ancient times. The exact origins of fermented
bread are, however, unknown. One of the most ancient preserved
sourdough breads has been excavated in Switzerland.
@@ -13,17 +24,17 @@ bread had already been made in \num{12000}~BC in ancient Jordan~\cite{jordan+bre
Another popular story is that a lady in Egypt was making
a bread dough close to the Nile river. The lady forgot the
dough and returned a few days later. She noticed that the dough had
dough and at her return a few days later, she noticed that the dough had
increased in size and smelled funky. She decided to bake
the dough anyway. She was rewarded with a much
the dough anyway and was rewarded with a much
lighter, softer, better tasting bread dough. From that day
on she continued to make bread this way.
Little did the people back then know that tiny microorganisms
were the reason they made better bread. It is not clear when
people started using a bit of the dough from the previous
were the reason the bread was better. It is not clear when
they started using a bit of the dough from the previous
day for the next batch of dough. But by doing so, sourdough
bread making was born. Wild yeast in the flour and in the air
bread making was born: Wild yeast in the flour and in the air
plus bacteria start to decompose the flour-water mixture, also
known as your dough. The yeast makes the dough fluffy, and
the bacteria primarily creates acidity. The different
@@ -36,7 +47,7 @@ Quickly, similar processes were discovered when brewing beer
or making wine. A small tiny batch of the previous production
would be used for the next production. In this way, humans created
modern bread yeasts, wine yeasts, and beer yeasts. Only in 1680,
the scientist Anton van Leeuwenhoek first studied yeast microorganisms
the scientist Anton van~Leeuwenhoek first studied yeast microorganisms
under a microscope. Over time with each batch, the yeasts and bacteria
would become better at consuming whatever they were thrown at.
By feeding your sourdough starter, you are selectively breeding
@@ -86,7 +97,9 @@ the first packaged dry yeast was developed. This would ultimately
allow bakeries and home bakers to make bread much faster.
Thanks to pure yeast, building bread making machines was
possible. Provided you maintain the same temperature,
your yeast would always ferment exactly the same way. As fermentation
your yeast would always ferment exactly the same way.
As fermentation
times sped up, the taste of the final bread would deteriorate.
The sprouting process induced by certain enzymes is essential
to developing a fluffier texture and better tasting crust. This
@@ -95,6 +108,7 @@ to introduce additional enzymes to achieve similar properties
to sourdough bread in yeast-based doughs. Sourdough almost completely
vanished from the surface of the Earth. Only a handful
of true nerds would continue making bread with sourdough.
Suddenly people started to talk more often about celiac disease
and the role of gluten. The disease isn't new; it has first
been described in 250 AD~\cite{coeliac+disease}. People