Salt Water Farm on NPR’s ‘The Salt’

By Irene Yadao

NPR science correspondent Joe Palca wrote a great piece on NPR’s food blog (The Salt) about the “wild science” of baking sourdough bread.  Joe, who attended Salt Water Farm’s Pop Tech bread baking and cheese-making workshop last October, says he was curious about Farm Manager Ladleah Dunn’s recipe of making sourdough bread with levain, or a bread starter, made with yeast harvested directly from the air in one’s immediate environment.

“I thought sourdough didn’t have any yeast,” he writes.  The idea of wild yeast also intrigued his sister, Margaret, who happens to be a baker, and together they run an experiment of sorts with the help of a food scientist and a chemist.

To read Joe’s piece, “The Wild Science of Sourdough Bread-Making,” click here.  You can also read our write-up about the 2011 Pop Tech class right here on our blog.

Joe Palca’s sister, Margaret, is a baker based in Brooklyn.  

At last year’s Pop Tech class, Joe rolled up his sleeves and dug right in.

Joe listens as Ladleah prepares a demonstration.