When Sour Notes Spell Good News

The Covid-19 pandemic, which brought the world to its knees in March 2020, spelt other ramifications, not all of which were necessarily ominous in nature. One of them was a good, hard look at eating healthy, and eating at home. Also, the lost art of slow cooking methods was back in focus as everyone had plenty of time on one’s hands with lockdowns in place.  No wonder, then, that one of the most-searched words during the peak months of the first wave, (March-May 2020) was sourdough bread. It was also the single most searched recipe on Google in the US during that period. 

There were two major reasons for sourdough bread to trend (even in India, on a smaller scale, of course) during the pandemic. One was the abundance of time, which almost felt like it was standing still, and that was good news for people interested in baking sourdough as it’s a time-intensive process. The second was the unavailability of yeast, which went missing from grocery stores.

We saw a growing trend of sourdough baking in India during the lockdown, although there are a few committed sourdough enthusiasts who have been on the trail much before it got trending. Priya Bhoopal, the Founder Chef of Spero Patisserie and Boulangerie, for instance, has been baking sourdough since a little more than a decade, when she stumbled upon it in a different context altogether. Her research led her to the benefits of sourdough, which include being gut-friendly, thanks to the fermentation process. Priya, who had IBS issues, found her guts responding quite favourably to sourdough, among other fermented foods, and she decided to follow the trail by baking it herself. 

A trained Le Cordon Bleu pastry chef, Priya has been learning traditional methods of sourdough baking from one of the industry’s most well-known proponents, the UK-based Vanessa Kimbell, who lives by the motto of baking and eating ‘beautiful bread as lifestyle medicine’. 

Having attended Vanessa’s workshop in person in Northampton recently, (after a year-long online course) Priya did a sourdough table or rather ‘fermented foods’ table recently at Spero, which tried to recreate the entire organic and wellness-filled experience in the UK of sourdough baking and breaking bread, with fresh loaves being combined with both fresh produce like farm-fresh salads and fermented foods, like kimchi, pickled onions and beetroot, as well as kombucha. There was a pesto sourdough pizza, which was so good, in a fluffed-up way, that it got demolished in no time. And what is more, the dessert also consisted of a cherry almond sourdough cake. 

While some nutritionists like Rohini Raman argue that the probiotic elements of sourdough get destroyed due to baking at high temperatures, they also concede that it is the best bread to digest, thanks to the specific cultures or prebiotics which arise in fermentation of sourdough. These help in breaking down complex carbohydrates and amino acids, enabling easier digestion and better absorption of nutrients, which sourdough is universally acknowledged for.  

Sourdough also ticks off the fibre checkbox when it comes to nutritive benefits, and sourdough bakers are known to add whole wheat grains, like rye, spelt (one of the most ancient grains, related to wheat, barley and rye) and millets too. Priya adds, for example, locally sourced sorghum or jowar to her flour to make it more diverse and also uses bread flour with high grades of protein, to balance out the wholewheat effect, which can irritate your gut at times. And yes, the grains are ground on a stone mill, which she brought back with her from the US on one trip. 

Young bakers like Sanchay Gumidelli of Trio Patisserie whose banana-walnut breads and plum cakes do fabulous business, admits that when it comes to sourdough baking, he has a long way to go. It requires single-minded dedication, and when it comes to a commercial kitchen, that becomes difficult. But he is now adamant to get onto the sourdough bandwagon as there is currently good enquiries by people who have been recommended this fermented food by nutritionists for combating health concerns. 

Priya agrees that it took her five years of sourdough baking to reach here and when her customers come back in the same day after checking on sourdough bread supplies, her years of hard work and research feel validated. She sells 75-80 loaves of sourdough bread in a week, which is a good beginning, she thinks. 

The image of sourdough being this crusty, chewy, and porous bread with an unglamorous appearance is fast changing, with bakers altering the product profile by making donuts, cakes and pizzas out of sourdough, as well as adding value-added ingredients. Priya avers that sourdough to provide the maximum benefits, should be added with natural protein and pigmented grains, naturally dried edible flowers, fruits, dried beans, and seeds. The sourdough bread, which we had at her table had sea buckthorn added to it and plenty of seeds too, like flax seeds and pumpkin seeds. The Mountain Apple sourdough at Spero has apple, walnuts, and fennel seeds. 

Sourdough, indeed, has made inroads into our lives in India and that definitely is good news for advocates of fermented foods being healthy for us.