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Yeast (II)
Mrs. Mary Ludlam.
Six good potatoes grated raw, a little hop tea, one quart of boiling water, three-fourths cup of brown sugar, one-half teaspoon of salt; when cool, add yeast to rise; keep covered and in a cool place.
This is a bread yeast, not a dish: a potato-and-hop ferment kept alive on the pantry shelf and used a cupful at a time. The instructions assume you already have a little live yeast on hand to start it.
- The hinge: temperature before you add the yeast"When cool" is the whole recipe. The boiling water is there to swell and partly cook the raw potato starch; yeast begins to suffer above about 120F and is killed near 140F, so bring the mixture down to lukewarm before adding it.
- Hop teaSteep a small handful of dried hops in hot water and strain; the recipe says only "a little" and gives no quantity. Hops contribute bitterness and, more usefully, antibacterial resins that suppress spoilage organisms while the yeast works. Brewing-supply hops are the same plant; leaf or pellet both steep.
- "Add yeast to rise"This would have meant a cup of the previous batch, or a fragment of a dried yeast cake. A modern equivalent is one packet (2 1/4 tsp) of active dry yeast, or a cup of any live starter. Thereafter you save a cupful of each batch to begin the next.
- Six good potatoesFigure about 1 1/2 lb, roughly 3 medium russets today. Grate them raw on the fine side of a box grater directly into the bowl so they do not brown.
- Sugar and saltThe three-quarters cup of brown sugar is feed for the yeast, not sweetening for the bread, and the half teaspoon of salt may help hold competing bacteria in check. The proportions are part of how the batch keeps.
- "A cool place"That meant a cellar or a north-facing larder, around 50-55F. The refrigerator is colder than intended but is the practical modern substitute. Cover loosely so gas can escape, and expect vigorous foaming for the first day.
- Yield and useUpwards of a quart. Half a cup to a cup raises a two-loaf batch of bread, working more slowly than commercial yeast: allow several hours or an overnight rise. Stir before pouring, since the potato settles hard.
- When to throw it outA clean sour-beer smell is right. Nail-polish sharpness, pink or orange streaks, or any fuzz on the surface means the batch has been taken over and should go down the drain. It keeps roughly a week refrigerated before it needs refreshing with new potato and sugar.
Before packaged yeast, households commonly kept their own, and potato-and-hop yeast is often said to have been a common American answer through much of the nineteenth century. The hops came from brewing practice, where their preservative power was long understood, and the potato supplied the starch that a purely liquid ferment lacked; recipes like this one circulated as personal property, which is why it arrives here credited to Mrs. Mary Ludlam rather than as an anonymous formula. The Home Cook Book was compiled in Chicago in 1874 from contributions by named local women, the proceeds going to the Home for the Friendless, and its several competing yeast recipes show how much variation there was between kitchens on a matter this basic. Compressed fresh yeast was commercially available in the United States by the 1870s and spread quickly afterward, and within a generation entries like this one had become historical curiosities rather than weekly routine.