By Sarah Hoenig
Bread is a staple at Fort Nisqually Living History Museum’s period kitchen, representing one of the many food traditions in this globally connected community. But when it comes to recreating authentic bread from the 1850s, the type of leavening agent used—whether sourdough, hops, or salt-rising starter—can be surprisingly elusive. With the popularity of sourdough on the rise, visitors having increasingly guessed that cooks in 1850s Northwest settlements might have relied on sourdough starters for breadmaking. Sourdough, made famous by the “49ers”, has long held a place in American food lore, but here at a British-run Hudson’s Bay Company (HBC) outpost, the story may be more complex.
So, what kind of yeast would Fort Nisqually’s cooks have used in the 1850s? Let’s explore the various leavening techniques popular in cookbooks of the period and accounts from those who lived in this region and see what makes the most sense for our place and time.
Popular Leavening Methods of the Era
- Hop Yeast: The most prominent yeast-based method for breadmaking in the 1850s was “hop rising,” especially prevalent in British recipes. Hop yeast, made by infusing hops (a natural yeast carrier) in water and combining it with flour and sometimes malt, was preferred in commercial and household bread production in England. At Fort Vancouver, another Hudson’s Bay Company Fort on the Pacific Coast, an 1848 inventory listed two yeast tubs for large-scale baking, as well as sieves for separating the hops after boiling them. This suggests that they were producing hop-based yeast to meet the demand of a bustling bakery. Hop-based yeast could be challenging to maintain but was seemingly preferred for its reliable rise.
Accounts support this reliance on hops for yeast. A Mrs. Nelson, who traveled to Oregon from Virginia in 1843, brought along her cherished hop vine to ensure she could make “good bread”. Ezra Meeker, another American settler in the Pacific Northwest, mentioned his wife’s homemade hop yeast cakes that were dried for convenience on their journey from Iowa to the Puyallup Valley in Washington. From her home in Ontario, English woman Cathrine Traill advised any British emigrant living in Canada to use hop yeast for a superior flavor.
2. Salt-Rising Bread: Salt-rising bread is another yeast-free method that achieves a rise through bacterial fermentation, specifically using Clostridium perfringens, which is a quite long scientific name for a very familiar bacterium . This bacterium is easily grown in warm, damp environments, and is the most common cause of food poisoning in the U.S. today. It is due to this fast growing bacteria (amongst others) that food is required by the USDA to be kept in “safe zones” of under 40 degrees and over 140 degrees. While bacteria risen bread may not sound tasty, dough leavened this way has a distinctive rich, cheesy and nutty flavor. Salt rising bread, contrary to its name does not need salt in the fermentation process, instead a mixture of warm milk, cornmeal, and sugar is left in a warm environment (approx. 95 degrees) for 8 – 12 hours to begin the bacterial growth. While salt-rising bread is much easier to make then hop-rising bread, even in the 1850s there was some dislike for this method. As Cathrine Traill put it “This sort of barm is much used among the old Canadian and Yankee settlers. It has this advantage over other kinds of rising; it requires no addition of any other yeast to stimulate it into active fermentation…I dislike the peculiar flavor it imparts, and if it is not really well managed, it is neither pleasant nor wholesome but many persons prefer it to all other modes of fermenting bread”.
Charles Ross, born in 1851, whose family settled in Puyallup not far from Fort Nisqually, fondly recalled his mother baking salt-rising bread during childhood. Later in life, he wrote of its “rich, sweet, and nutty” flavor when baked in a deep Dutch oven heated with coals. James Sales also described his mother cooking salt-rising bread in a hearth oven. Born in 1853, James was playmates with the children of several HBC employees at the time.
So, What Was on Fort Nisqually’s Table?
Without definitive records, we can only speculate, but both hop yeast and salt-rising methods align with the fort’s cultural influences and resources. Of the two, hop yeast, if hops were available and requiring perhaps a bit more upkeep, appears to be the most likely choice for a baker catering to British taste preferences. If British taste preferences did not hold sway, then salt-rising bread would be appropriate for times when milk is easier to aquire then hops. But, few doubts are left in saying that sourdough is the least likely method of leavening that you might have found at Fort Nisqually in the 1850s. There is yet to be discovered any mention of it in the Puget Sound area during the mid-19th century, and the flavor of sourdough is unlikely to have attracted British or French-Canadian tastes.
Ultimately, while we can’t pinpoint the exact method, experimenting with both techniques in a historical kitchen lets us glimpse what Fort Nisqually’s bakers may have experienced. Each loaf carries a piece of history, a reminder of the fort’s cultural crossroads and the ingenuity of its bakers.
Bibliography
McGee, Harold. 2014. “The Disquieting Delights of Salt-Rising Bread.” Popular Science. May 20, 2014. https://www.popsci.com/article/science/clostridium-it-can-kill-you-or-it-can-make-you-bread/.
Meeker, Ezra. Ventures and Adventures of Ezra Meeker: Or, Sixty Years of Frontier Life; Fifty-six Years of Pioneer Life in the Old Oregon Country; an Account of the Author’s Trip Across the Plains with an Ox Team in 1852, and His Return Trip in 1906; His Cruise on Puget Sound in 1853, and His Trip Through the Natchess Pass in 1854; Over the Chilcoot Pass and Flat-boating on the Yukon in 1898. The Oregon Trail. United States: Rainier Printing Company, 1909.
Told by the Pioneers…: Tales of Frontier Life as Told by Those Who Remember the Days of the Territory and Early Statehood of Washington. United States, 1937.
Traill, Catherine Parr Strickland. The Canadian Settler’s Guide. Toronto, 1855.
Sarah Hoenig is the Education Coordinator at Fort Nisqually Living History Museum in Tacoma, Washington. There you’ll find her immersed in tours, workshops, camps—and sometimes baking in the historic kitchen!
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