Covid-19 Discussions and Stories

[aaronatthedoublef]

One of the local restaurant distributors has announced they will sell fresh produce to the public for curbside pickup on Tuesdays and Thursday. Their sales have to be hurt by this so it is a good way for them to boost sales and a good alternative to people who do not want to go to the store. Also based on the restaurants that use them they have nice produce.

I went to Costco yesterday for the first time in three weeks. No toilet paper or cleaners other than Mrs. Meyers which doesn't disinfect and bathroom cleaners which are not good for the rest of the house.

Good supply of eggs, dairy, and produce. Good supply of paper towels but limited to one 12 pack per customer. Too bad because they were on sale so I would normally stock up.

Good amount of AP flour - 15 lb KAF bags and 50 lb Ardent Mills. Also sugar. I did not buy flour because I don't want to hoard and I have a good supply for now.

Also 15, 25, and 50 lb bags of rice.

Here are some "hard time" recipes posted on Atlas obscura. Potato Cookies look cool and a bit like cake pops without a stick. Then there is salt rising bread which is a bread recipe using natural yeast.

[BakerAunt]

None of those recipes is going to pass the "healthy" test, Aaron!

[aaronatthedoublef]

Well, they were from calorie constricted times. The salt bread and slug burgers might. The slug burgers might actually be less bad as you'll supplement the meat with potato flour.

[Mike Nolan]

If it is a true salt rising bread recipe (usually starting with potatoes), it doesn't use yeast for leavening, it uses a bacteria, usually clostridium perfringens. You have to be very careful about cross-contamination, because C. perfringens is one of the more common causes of food poisoning.

I remember Anthony Bourdain was serving as a judge on one of the sillier cooking competition shows, where they limited what equipment the chefs had, and someone used the metal storage shelves as a grater. Anthony wasn't thrilled, saying that was a great way to get C. perfringens.

I'm told salt rising bread has a taste reminiscent of cheese. I don't plan to make it to find out.

[aaronatthedoublef]

Here is how it explains the what happens:

Salt-rising bread does not require yeast to rise. Instead, bakers cultivate bacteria in their starter by leaving a mixture of boiled milk, cornmeal or wheat flour (and, sometimes, a sliced potato), sugar, and salt out overnight in a hot environment. The resulting microbes create hydrogen, which serves as the leavening agent.

They do claim that James Beard was a fan and has a recipe in

Beard on Bread

but I haven't researched it at all.

[BakerAunt]

Here is what James Beard says in Beard on Bread:

"Salt-rising bread is one of the oldest breads in this country. It has a delicious and unusual flavor and a very smooth texture. In fact, it is one of the most remarkable of breads. It does present one great difficulty for the breadmaker. It is unpredictable. You may try the same recipe without success three or four times and find that it works the fith time. Or you may get a loaf that is halfway good. If it works, fine; if it doesn't forget it. I am including it in this collection because it is a worth recipe, but I do so with a warning that you may be disappointed" (p. 68)

He also states that the starter, as it sits, needs to be kept at a "steady temperature" of 100F. He gives a time of between 12 and 24 hours for the starter to foam.

It does not have a rise between the mixing of the starter and other ingredients, but he notes that the rising in the pans may take 4-5 hours or longer.

This is definitely NOT a bread to recommend to new bakers. They would have better luck with starting their own sourdough culture. As an experienced baker, I have no desire to try it.

[BakerAunt]

Out of curiosity, I also consulted Bernard Clayton. In the first edition of his The Complete Book of Breads, he says that "the phrase salt-rising refers to the old kitchen practice of keeping the bowl of starter nested overnight in a bed of warm salt, which retains heat nicely. It does not refer to the bread's peculiar taste" (p. 306).

He notes, as did Beard, that the starter can be "temperamental" and warns: "

. . . if it doesn't bubble up during the night to produce its oddly sweet odor, have no patience. It is only a sacrifice of cornmeal and milk. Begin again, but put it together in another way. Use a different milk, or another kind of cornmeal. There is no easy explanation of why one combination will work and another will not" (p. 306).

Like Beard (and unlike that article that got us started on this topic), Clayton emphasizes warmth when making the starter. Indeed, he days to "warm everything it touches, the bowl, the cups, and the spoon" (306). He instructs readers to find a spot in their house which is between 90F-95F and notes that in his house "that is on a shelf near the hot water heater in the utility room." He, like Beard, also recommends the pilot light of the oven, but of course our ovens don't have pilot lights anymore.

He suggests using pasteurized whole milk and notes he has had no success with non-fat dry milk.

He goes on to give three different recipes. He notes in the first one that the dough "will have a strong smell not unlike a soft ripe cheese, and it is here the lovers of salt-rising bread are usually sorted out from among those who are not. To the former, it is a glorious aroma; to the latter, an unpleasant smell" (p. 307). Clayton also includes two of the three recipes in the revised second edition of his book.

[Mike Nolan]

Another page on salt rising bread:

Salt Rising Bread

[Mike Nolan]

Walmart reported a 20% increase in sales in the last month, but says that panic buying may be slowing down. The week of March 21st they reported a 67% spike over the same week a year ago.

There are some funny stories out on the web about foods that nobody wants even in a panic, like lima beans.

[BakerAunt]

We actually like lima beans--dry ones I cook or frozen ones. I've not tried canned. My sister bought some to use in a lima bean casserole she wanted to try. She said the dry and frozen ones were sold out.

[Italiancook]

When we're the other side of this virus, I wonder what the landscape will look like. I think Covid-19's increase in online shopping will make it extremely hard for brick and mortar retail to recover. I hope I'm way wrong.

[Mike Nolan]

My guess is that the big department stores are in big trouble: Macy's, JC Penny, etc. JCP was already on the edge.

Those that also do groceries, like WalMart and Target, are doing fairly well so far, but they're probably living on the grocery sales, I didn't see much of anybody looking at much less buying clothes when we went to WalMart the other day. The parking lot was nearly empty, but we were there a half hour before it was closing.

Not sure about hardware chains like Ace, True Value, Home Depot, Lowes and Menards.

Hotels and especially smaller motels are going to be in big trouble too, many of them are heavily leveraged.

The interesting question will be how the retail sector is changed. Stores were already moving away from being open 24 x 7, I doubt we'll see a rush back to that.

I read an interesting point in the WSJ. When the clothing stores do get reopened, their inventory will all be for the wrong season. This is also the time of year when stores order up for Christmas, and that isn't happening.

The mom-and-pop stores are going to suffer the worst, I expect 2/3 of the non-chain restaurants in Lincoln are going to be hard pressed to reopen. Others may come along and utilize that space at some point, everybody thinks they can run a restaurant, bar or bakery. Most can't, even in good times, and good times are a long ways off.

[RiversideLen]

If anyone is running low on yeast, I was on the KAF site this morning and saw they have SAF Gold in stock (2 limit per order). And if you're wondering if you can use SAF Gold for all your yeast needs, yes you can. I've been using it exclusively for years.

[Italiancook]

About an hour ago this evening, the KAF website said the SAF Gold is temporarily unavailable.

RiversideLen, does the Gold yeast make non-sweet breads rise faster? Do you use it in the same proportion as the SAF red? Does the Gold change the flavor of the baked product, as compared the the Red?

[RiversideLen]

Italiancook, I don't think it makes the breads rise faster and after I started using it I did not notice any change in flavor but I never did a side by side comparison. And yes, I use it in the same proportion as the Red.

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