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If you want to find out all there is to know about mother dough, there are books, courses and experts. For everything else, there is Fine Dining Lovers. Are you tired of feeling excluded from your friends’ conversations?
Do you want to feel part of the mother dough fan club? There is no need to become real experts: you just have to pretend you are. It doesn’t take much to impress your friends with your knowledge of the subject, the apparent fruit of decades of experience.
Here are six tips to convince everyone you are mother dough experts.
1) Call it by its name
“Mother dough” is not enough. You have John, George and Mary in your fridge, and you talk about them in terms you would normally attribute to family pets. And, just like pets, they have to be “looked after” during the holidays. When this topic comes up, adopt a concerned expression and complain about the fact that mother dough sitters are so hard to come by these days.
2) You shall have no other yeast before me
Beer yeast? Powdered yeast? Let’s not joke about such a serious matter. The only real yeast is mother yeast. Whenever any ingenuous friend states that he likes pizza made with beer yeast, or that baking powder is more practical for making cakes, express as much righteous indignation as you can muster up.
3) My friends the saccharomyces
Ever since you have had a mother dough, there is nothing you don’t know about bacteria. Fermentation has replaced football and cinema in your list of personal interests. Just throw in a few lofty-sounding words here and there, such as Krebs cycle and pyruvic acid, drink nothing but beer and always keep sour yogurt in the fridge (“It’s a little experiment I’m working on”).
4) The importance of words
Mother dough, repeat after us, MOTHER DOUGH. Not natural yeast. If you hear anyone using this term, explain that “natural” is an improper adjective. In answer to his request for more details, get on your high horse and explain that it is too long and complex a subject to explain and he will probably not understand it anyway.
5) Eye it up
You do not merely taste bread. You observe it, you taste it and you judge it. You will never grab a piece of bread and take a casual bite out of it. Each slice will be weighed up, as you stick your finger into the air holes and sniff the crust. Only to declare at the end of this operation that “Mine is better”.
6) Taste and distaste
Many people dislike the – more or less pronounced - acidic aftertaste that mother dough gives to leavened products. Obviously, they don’t know what they are talking about. You A-D-O-R-E acidity. To reinforce this statement, you take a lemon out of your bag, sprinkle it with salt and calmly bite into it. “It’s my favourite snack, you know”.
