Lactobacillus Amongus- call for participants- S.E. Nash

My upcoming show for PLUG Projects in May will center around sourdough starters and public participation in creating starters and cooking or baking with them. For this project, I am aiming to collect every starter in the Kansas City area. This means that participants who have starters will give me a portion of their starter (while keeping their original culture) to take care of and display in the installations at the gallery. The starters will be tended to throughout the exhibit and the participants will be asked to bake something with them for a public tasting at the end of the show.

Sourdough starters are created spontaneously in a mixture of flour and water. The strains of bacteria and yeast that populate the mixture come from the flour, atmosphere, and body of the maker. In fact, many species of Lactobacillus are found in large numbers in the human microbiome, and are especially abundant in the vagina. Lactobacillus produces lactic acid, the familiar sour taste in sourdough bread, sauerkraut, and other lacto-fermented foods. To put the use of starters in perspective: wild yeast and bacteria have been used for bread baking for the last 12,000 years, presumably originating in the Fertile Crescent. Cultivated baker’s yeast has been used for a little over 150 years by comparison!

CALL FOR PARTICIPANTS: I am looking for participants in the KC area who have a sourdough starter. If you do not have a starter and want to participate, stay tuned! I am organizing a fermentation workshop with the Charlotte Street Foundation in February. I will cover sourdough starters and basic lacto-fermentation for beginners. Please contact me if you would like to be included on the list for the fermentation workshop: http://www.senash.com/contact/

And please share this public Facebook call for participation: https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10155100575616435&set=a.50307806434.58833.749896434&type=3&theater&notif_t=like&notif_id=1484508522793609