It was very uncommon until about three years ago, when some local restaurants began offering it with breakfast. Their version is pretty bland sourdough – none of the rich flavor of the good stuff. You can get decent stuff in supermarkets and farmer’s markets, though.
I wouldn’t say it’s as common as that. Small supermarkets don’t usually sell it and a lot of sandwich places only do white or brown wheat bread still. It’s pretty easy to get, but it’s not ubiquitous.
I bought some at the farmer’s market last week for my teenager and her friends, and they’d never even heard of it before.
Live in the San Francisco area and have become so used to it (though I did prefer it for most sandwiches before moving here) that I always have a moment of wondering what’s wrong with it when a restaurant uses something else for their table bread.
When I visited Alaska it was a while before I realized that almost all of the “sourdough” and “original sourdough” references were not to bread.
I still remember the awesome sourdough bread I enjoyed when I lived in northern California several years ago. I can’t find an equal substiture here in northern Virginia so I’d like to ask the San Francisco dopers this question: Are there any purveyors of authentic sourdough bread that do mail orders? Please tell me of any websites of bakeries that’ll do this and I will be in your debt.
east coast. couple hours from NYC.
there’s a chance u might find it in a supermarket with a bakery. but not all of them nor all the time.
otherwise chain restraunts that serve sandwiches like perkins, friendly’s, red robin…etc… if they happen to have it on the menu.
There are possibly only 5 places in the whole of Peru that make it and they ar specialty places.
I love it, but it’s an alien taste (and smell) for my fellow Peruvians.
Does a Sourdough Jack count? Mmmmm 
I bet that makes Jack smile…
Depends on what you mean by “where you live.” At the grocery store here in town it’s certainly available but not horribly common. At my house, it’s very common–we have a really nice starter going and use it regularly. In fact, I just fed the starter this evening and have the leftover starter making a sponge for some waffles in the morning. I might make some chocolate croissants with some of it later in the week.
Or you could make your own for something like 50 cents a loaf. Sourdough is stupidly simple to start and use. If you can use a measuring cup and stir, you can get a starter going. If you can also mash things around, you can bake sourdough.
What? How could you not know the history, living so close to the Gold Rush Sierras, or why they referred to prospectors as “sourdoughs?” The availability of real sourdough bread is regional for a reason:
[QUOTE=Wikipedia]
…Each bakery’s sourdough has a distinct taste. The combination of starter processes, refreshment ratios and rest times, culture and air temperature, humidity, and elevation also makes each batch of sourdough different.
[/quote]
(Bolding mine.) In other words, the climate determines how the cultures reproduce, and how it bakes, as well. You can’t bake a loaf of sourdough exactly like the kind they make in San Francisco in just any old part of the country or world—let alone in a dry, arid place like the Southwest.
It’s not a coincidence. The climate in London is similar to that in San Francisco.
Again, it’s more about the climate, than the cultural milieu. People will produce “approximate” sourdough bread anywhere, but in the wrong climate it often lacks the specific texture that the famous kind is known for, and it usually gets stale very quickly, becoming just run-of-the-mill, bad bread.
I don’t know…my experience is that baked goods (except for cookies) in general is the one thing that Trader Joe’s categorically sucks at. Everything from bagels to scones are just all bad at Trader Joe’s. Even their pita bread sucks. Trader Joe’s is generally great for everything else, but Baker Joe needs to be fired.
Friends of Carl.. Long story short, Carl’s Grandmother got a batch of sourdough started on the Oregon Trail as they migrated to the left coast. Carl passed away at a ripe old age, and his friends/acquaintances/sourdough afficianado buddies have kept Carl alive by keeping his grandmother’s original sourdough alive, and available to anyone who asks for the price of a self addressed stamped envelope.
One Doper that I can’t remember got his from Carl before he passed. I had a batch started from Carl for about 5 years in Shanghai. I just discovered some dried starter from a Friend of Carl, that is 2 years old and I brought here from Shanghai. I’m gonna start that sucker up this weekend and see how she blows.
So click the link, send a SASE and in a few weeks you’ll be good to go.
Sorry, no.
This would have been a perfectly cromulent defense 50 years ago, but we have fast vroom vroom airplanes and trucks and rail now. We can get literally anything except good tropical bananas in Chicago, and I haven’t given up on those yet. And there IS good sourdough here, so your theory doesn’t hold. SOME people are either shipping it in daily, or have figured out how to control their bakery’s environments well enough to bake it here.
I’m not complaining because I can’t get some particular fine vintage of sourdough (although I absolutely understand that sourdoughs made in the traditional way do vary quite a bit by region), I’m complaining because too many stores stock loaves of insipid wallpaper paste bread with a little squirt of acid in them as “sourdough”, and I don’t like being tricked like that. Putting acid in the dough instead of using a starter is done out of laziness or thrift. It’s cheaper to squirt in some acid for tang than it is to devote time, labor, and storage space to a good starter.
But I completely agree about the dismal state of Trader Joe’s breads. They don’t use enough salt, so they all taste flat, and in my experience, they mold almost overnight. Maybe that’s a regional thing, but I swear they must have a mold issue at one of their distribution centers near me. Every single loaf, be it 12 grain or cornbread or tortilla or baguette molds in an amazingly short time. I mean, when baguette is molding before it gets hard, there’s a serious issue. Like you, I love Trader Joe’s, but I don’t buy bread there anymore.
That’s true, but it seems that not many actually do that in places without a tradition and climate of sourdough. It must be a lot of trouble, and I guess it raises costs a lot. Even in Los Angeles, where just about everything gets imported, I’ve found that most serious bakeries produce something that is close, but not exactly like the Boudin that’s sold in the airport (from daily flights from San Francisco). Or the typical store, which has a fairly decent bakery, often still seems to use that additive.
Boudin is one that does. Here’s their page with (sourdough) french bread. They also offer other foods to ship, but it’s expensive. ($15 for two loaves! It only costs $4/loaf in their store.)
(BTW, you know you’re a real San Franciscan if you… eat french bread, never call it sourdough. Those pics/captions really resonated with me.)
In the UK, never heard of it. It doesn’t sound very appetising to me, either…
Taste is similar to crumpets, with the texture of a nice country loaf. The crust is often brushed with water or eggwash before baking to make it nice and crunchy with a good chew to it.
I’ve lived here fore 13 years now and I’m trying to recall if I’ve ever heard anybody call it French bread.
We used to, back when there was only Wonder Bread and its competitors and “French Bread”, and the latter was provided by two San Francisco bakeries, both Italian. That was a ways back before Americans became aware of food choices beyond flavors of Jell-O™. Now we call it sourdough like everyone else. Here in a coastal California college town, I could probably buy fifteen loaves of it each of differing provenance, many of them local. There’s a new bakery here that makes an organic sourdough whole wheat boule I could live on forever.
I don’t believe climate has much to do with successful sourdough, it has to do with a specialized oven (brick, traditionally), specialized baking techniques involving steaming, and good starter.
Sourdough bread is on the cover of the latest King Arthur Flour catalog: http://search.kingarthurflour.com/search.jsp?N=0&rt=p&Ntt=sourdough
It’s REALLY old-school. You’d have to go back at least 30 years or find some natives. But we did call it "french bread’ when I was growing up. (And Army Street was still Army Street, we got under our desks as part of an earthquake drill, the roof rides at the Emporium were a big part of seeing Santa, Zim’s was the go-to late night hang-out, and our trip to the dentist on the 14th floor of 450 Sutter St wasn’t over until we stopped at Wooworth’s basement lunch counter. And Liguria’s Bakery, Children’s Playground at the Park… too many memories. I need to talk with my sisters & cousins!)