Alaska Sourdough Starter: An Antique Health Food

One of my favorite types of antiques is cookbooks.   I have some that are over 100 years old, and a lot of more modern church society cookbooks.

When I go to an estate sale, I look for old cookbooks first.  At the estate sale of a little 96 year old lady, I found a cookbook written about "Alaska" sourdough.  The author, Ruth Allman, who lived on the frontier of Alaska in the 1950s and survived mostly by using sourdough starter to cook protein rich foods.

If you google sourdough starter, there are numerous pages written on multiple variations of how to make some.  Amish friendship bread is similar, but does not use wild yeast as sourdough starter does.  If you google friendship bread, you come across fruit bread starters.  All of these enzyme rich starters are antique ways to add flavor to food.

Our ancestors relied heavily on these food stuffs when they were settling the frontier.  The starters use natural bacteria and yeasts that are always present around us, but in the starters they are given a chance to take over.  The by products of these bacteria add flavor to any mixture. They turn starch into protein, and are an antique way to eat organic food.

It was in the early 1900s that mass canning and pasteurization processes took over most of these natural processes, and people in the cities began relying on modern methods.  The modern way is safer, but the antique way of "starters" is much more fun.

Try it. Google sourdough starter, and make some of your own.