Wild yeast waters
I was first introduced to this by Polly, one of my students, in the early days of the School. She had travelled from Hong Kong for a course and described a Chinese way of baking using wild yeasts from fermented fruit. She advised using cherries. The result was incredible, a delicate mild sweet perfumed yeasty bread. We use the wild cherries or grapes from my parents’ vineyard, but there are many other fruits that make wild water including apricots, raisins, plums, and figs.
It is a very popular method in Asia. We call it Polly’s Wild Water. She explained that in Asia they don’t like the sourness of very long fermented bread, but they do love working with wild yeast to produce a lighter-flavoured, fermented bread.
When you make a wild water as a starter, you are effectively capturing the Saccharomyces cerevisiae, the yeast naturally found in many sourdough starters and a species believed to have been originally isolated from the skin of grapes. You can literally see the yeast as a component of the thin white film on the skins of dark-coloured fruits such as plums. There are also naturally occurring lactic acid bacteria, but these are at low levels in comparison to a wheat sourdough, so this starter is not one I recommend when it comes to students wanting a more digestible sourdough.
