What happened to our yeast?

"In the first half of the nineteenth century, the future of the new nation, it seemed, was in the hands of the women who kneaded its daily bread. ... Good bread was the measure of a good woman, a good wife, and a good mother." (Linda Civitello, Baking Powder Wars, p. 5)

Here we are, living as they did in frontier days, family units confined together, with our accustomed ease of access to food supplies disrupted. The urge to bake bread (or cake or cookies or pies or turnovers or...) has seized us -- not just women, also men across the country want to bake. Baking occupies idle people more satisfyingly than watching Netflix, and if done right, supplements dwindling food reserves. Home-made bread may save money over buying other types of food. The result of this reaction: flour has been in short supply for over a month, though in my own experience, it seems to be coming back. And as I've documented in other posts, Len has been trying a large number of bread recipes, both with starter and with yeast, which we fortunately had on hand. The photo shows his most recent loaves.

Gold miners' cabins, Bodie, California, where I visited last fall.
Sourdough would have been the most likely bread in the 1880s,
when most men ate in boarding houses and saloons.
Maintaining sourdough starter then as now means no need for yeast.

Yeast for home baking is currently in short supply, and it's very difficult for the yeast suppliers in the US to meet the increasing demand. A spokesperson for Fleischmann's yeast estimates that it may take the yeast industry two months to catch up with the increased demand for household-sized yeast jars and packets. The number of yeast manufacturers in the US is small, only 13 plants according to an EPA study from 1995, maybe more by now. Yeast production is also important for the commercial baking and alcohol production industries and is used in production of biodiesel. (source)

Two recent articles, "The Yeast Supply Chain Can’t Just Activate Itself" by Aaron Mak, and "The hot grocery item no one can find? Active dry yeast" by Chase Purdy, explain many of the challenges. In particular, production of yeast in a factory requires 50 days from the time it's ordered until it can be packaged and shipped. Industrial-scale yeast growing is nowhere near as simple as what you can do by mixing flour and water and maybe some raisins and waiting for wild yeast to populate your culture!

Roadblocks to meeting the current shortages include a shortage of packaging material (the jar supply comes from a now-closed factory in India), an unprecedented surge in demand (up 600% from last spring), and need to create a safe environment for workers in the yeast factory. In addition:

"There’s another hurdle that makes it difficult to quickly scale up yeast production. While plants may be able to streamline production domestically by hiring more people and working longer hours, certain segments of the process are restricted by a biological clock. 'Yeast takes a certain time to go from one cell to two cells,' says Sudeep Agarwala, a yeast geneticist who works for the biotech firm Ginkgo Bioworks. 'You can do everything you can to speed it up, but there’s a hard limit to how fast they can double.' Yeast also needs to consume sugar gradually—a production plant can’t force-feed the cells at a faster clip." (Mak)

Yeast in American History

Throughout the nineteenth century, the American food industry was developing new methods for the efficient processing of many types of foods. Canned fruit, vegetables, and meat products became important staples, and industrial canning was improved repeatedly. Large-scale bakeries and other packagers became common. Yeast definitely went from small-scale individual production to large-scale industrial production. Interestingly, today's major yeast corporations were mainly founded in the 19th century.

The Fleischmann brothers founded their yeast-making business in the 1860s.
Their product greatly improved the baking process for both home bakers
and commercial bakers. The large factory, as shown, developed later. (link)

Photo from the Red Star Yeast company, founded in 1882 in Milwaukee.
At first, the company was a brewery and distillery, but quickly converted to
yeast production, and constantly improved its methods of yeast manufacturing.
Red Star is now owned by Lesaffre yeast, also founded in the 19th century.

Before the microscope was invented, the rising of bread seemed to be a magical transformation. By the time the pioneers packed barrels of flour and crocks of sourdough starter on their wagons or their river boats, the basics of yeast fermentation (whether from sourdough, cake yeast, or dry yeast) were reasonably well understood. Going back in time, prior to the invention of the microscope and discovery of micro-organisms, the transformation of dough as it rose and then as it baked was viewed with awe. Explanations by Medieval writers, Greek, Roman, and Jewish religious practices, and many other cultures often invoked supernatural processes. Bread was fundamental to nutrition but also to many religious rituals.

The earliest evidence of yeast bread is in ancient Egypt 4000 years ago. Yeast was used for both brewing beer and making bread, as illustrated in these tomb figures that I've seen in museums. The figures of workers in Egyptian tombs were intended to ensure supplies of bread in the afterlife to the person who was buried there.

Kneading bread in ancient Egypt. 
My photo taken in the Royal Ontario Museum (link)

Kneading dough for a beer starter: Egypt, 2100-2000 C. BCE
Bread and beer were both made from yeast and grain,
and made by the same workers in ancient times.
Carved wooden statue in the Israel Museum, photo from 2016. (link)

A rather mystical and subjective account of the history of fermented breads and their significance in European history can be found in the book Six Thousand Years of Bread by H.E.Jacob. There are also many other books on bread that of course discuss the origins of yeast baking and its role in history.

This blog post copyright © 2020 mae sander for mae food dot blog spot dot com.