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Dear of troy: I have no doubt that you know how to make it. But you did not say how it got its name. There are many airborne yeasts that will make bread rise.The one that makes salt rising bread has to have a starter with some ingredients that help it, but it further requires some warmth that other yeasts do not, and the saltbox would pick up and hold just the right amount of heat to permit the proper yeast to incubate.
So putting the culture into the salt box gave the bread its name.
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according to Joy of Cooking, yes, the yeast does require more heat than most yeast-- we kept in the oven, where the oven pilot light kept the oven at 78 (f).
But the yeast is also extremely salt tolerant. Joy makes no mention of the starter being stored in a salt box.. we used glass jars. Joy pointed out that salt rising bread was a good way to get yeast when none could be purchased, and thought the bread developed out in the western parts of the US, where salt was a readily available.
but i would be interested to learn more.
i know this borders on being a food thread, but i see this as closer to biology-- since the whole basis of salt rising bread is a salt tolerent strain of yeast, and the idea that you can use high salt to kill off bad bacteria, and leave only the good one.
i am often impressed by how people, common people, used advanced science and chemistry, with no advanced knowledge.
i wonder how well i would do, with out all the technology i depend on.
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What you call salt boxes, we in Zild have usually called salt cellars. Interesting, hmmmmm?
The idiot also known as Capfka ...
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Dear of troy: remember the bread originated in very primitive kitchens where the salt box was the only place with some reaonable control of the incubating temperature.
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What you call salt boxes, we in Zild have usually called salt cellars.
We have salt cellars, too, Max ... I have glass ones and fancy gold ceramic and even a pair in silver ones for the table on special occasions.
Salt cellars also come in pairs that are sometimes made as miniatures of other things -- people sometimes have collections of them -- Considered "collectables" there is everything imaginable from Mickey and Minnie Mouse and other cartoon characters to pairs of Moose to Hansel and Grettel,to bull and cows, to cars, to lobsters and I even saw a pair of frogs once! None more than about four or five inches tall.
The salt holder in these types of salt cellars has larger holes than the pepper shakers, or sometimes there are just more holes in the salt cellars than in the pepper. Makes for a surprise, sometimes, for the uninitiated!
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Again at lunch I was annoyed by saltcellars having tops clogged by moisture, and this is a very dry place. They ought to make saltcellars with plastic caps to keep moisture out. I used to have some that had a very small rubber stopper in bottom that was opened by pressing a button on top. At least once a month I have to put salt on a plate and give it a short burst in the microwave to dry it while cap was washed and dried.
You didn't say how big the Zild saltcellars are, but the salt boxes had to be big enough to hold at least ten pounds of salt, to have room for a couple cups of yeast culture, and hold enough heat to do the job.
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I was annoyed by saltcellars having tops clogged by moisture, and this is a very dry place.
To prevent that in humid weather, put some grains of rice in the salt. Real rice not the "minute" kind. The grains of rice are too big to get through the small holes that let salt sprinkle through.
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Dear wow: putting the rice in with the salt will keep the salt in the bottom part drier, but the trouble is at the holes in the cap, where traces of salt pick up moisture even in this very dry place. We haven't had rain for over a month, and it may be a couple more months before we have any. If the cap were not metal, the salt cellars could be zapped in microwave once a week. But it is tricky putting any metal into the microwave. Leaving twistems on, and dishes with metallic glazes makes fireworks. The other thing is that putting something with very little moisture into microwave and giving more than a very short burst can hurt the microwave. I just had an idea. If the salt cellars had plastic caps with knobs on the inside that would just fit into the holes of the shaker, that would solve the problem. I don't like the metal caps. Inevitably you are ingesting cap metal corroded by the salt. Yuk. But I have to be careful not to criticise my daughter's table ware. Even my buying new ones that suit me would be implied criticism. And I could not hope to find ones pretty enough to please her.
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veteran
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I'm not sure about the usage of "salt cellar". I think a couple of you are confusing them with salt shakers. A salt shaker is what the word denotes -- a container, small in size if intended to be put on the table, but larger if used by the cook by the stove, closed, with holes in the top from which you shake out the salt. A salt cellar is like a little box with an open top, glass, ceramic, silver, etc. or a combination (my great aunt had a beautiful pair in ruby red cut glass in silver holders). They were about 2 inches square and not quite as deep, holding maybe an eighth of a cup of salt, and, as noted were a pair (cellars seem to come usually in pairs). You get the salt out of a salt cellar with a tiny round spoon holding less than a quarter teaspoon, which is placed in the salt when the salt cellar goes on the table.
And BTW, I have known about salt rising bread for years, from Beard on Bread the best source I know of on bread, by the late James Beard.
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Pooh-Bah
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Post hidden for those with food thread phobia:
It is easy. Long ago, I moved over to salt grinders with sea salt to go with the black pepper grinder that I use all the time (much better than that horrid pre-ground white pepper that you were supposed to use in cruet sets. Just keep the antique stuff for display.
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