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58
winter
|
spr ing
mothers, and wagon train pioneers nourished yeast plants as carefully as
stock on the months-long overland journey. Even rugged trappers and
prospectors carried a lump of sourdough in their packs as they travailed in
the wilderness.
No one had ever seen a yeast plant until 1674 when Anton van
Leeuwenhoek of Holland invented the microscope and took a peek at
these microorganisms. What the world thought had been causing their
bread to rise until then is a mystery. Not until 1859 did a scientist, Louis
Pasteur, discover how yeast worked. By feeding on starches and sugars,
yeast emits carbon dioxide and alcohol; bread rises from the escaping
carbon dioxide and any alcohol burns off in the baking process.
In the early 1880s, American housewives and bakeries usually obtained
yeast from local breweries. Yeast could also be captured anew by placing
a dish of flour mixed with water in the open air until airborne yeast
(and other, less savory organisms) settled in and began devouring the
dough and multiplying. All that was to change after 1868 when Charles
Louis Fleischmann walked off the gangplank in New York harbor with a
legendary vial of Viennese Saccharomyces (a strain of yeast) in his pocket,
and a fledgling fortune was conceived.
Making the Dough
Though born in Austria in 1835, Charles L. Fleischmann was
Hungarian and spoke Magyar. As a young man, Charles managed a
distillery in Vienna and later became superintendent of the distillery
owner’s large estate in Hungary where he supervised the production of
yeast.
Charles first came to the United States in 1866 to attend the wedding
of his sister Josephine in New York. During his stay, he noticed that
One of the five successive yachts
named
Haida
motors off Santa
Barbara’s coast. Fleischmann
owned 22 yachts over his
lifetime.
(Courtesy Santa Barbara
Historical Museum)
Looking astern of the
Haida
with Stearns Wharf in the background circa 1930
(Courtesy Santa Barbara Historical Museum)