Book Review: Wild Sourdough the natural way to bake by Yoke Mardewi
This book is about using sourdough starters and yet has very little information on how to make a starter or how to care for a starter. This is a serious omission in a book in which all recipes are dedicated to the use of a starter. I bought the book to learn more about starters and then have a host of recipes. Unfortunately, this book did not provide the basics for getting a starter going.
Also, the book seems to have missed a careful editor's eye. In several recipes, the instructins say use ALL the ingredients, and yet half way though the recipe, you are instructed to add one of the ingredients at this point. So adding ALL the ingredients is not what the author really meant.
Other instructions are confusing - like shape the loaves as desired, followed by inistructions to roll the dough into a rectangle....
The book is from Australia so most of the weights are gram and ounces, but not all.
I would not recommend this book. It seems to be written by someone who is probably an excellent bread maker, but needs more practice in writinig cookbooks. While it is attractive - which is what made me buy it - I'd wait until the revised version is printed to correct many of the flaws and omissions.
Hopefully the revised version will have details on making and using a starter!!
I entirely agree, Loonerone. This is the first book I purchased on sourdough bread, and I was very disappointed with it.
As you say, there is virtually no information on how to get a starter going. I emailed Yoke Mardewi and asked for advice (she provides her email addresses in the book and invites queries from readers), but she responded with the briefest of brush-off replies that told me nothing of use. I ended up seeking help from the WildYeast and Sourdough Companion sites, and thanks to some very helpful advice from both, eventually got up and running.
As a freelance copy-editor/editor for over 20 years, I was appalled by the multiple errors and omissions (not to mention the spelling and grammatical errors) throughout the book. If this book was edited at all, it was not by a pro...and if it was, s/he should have been sacked! All in all, a very amateur effort.
I have now been through all Mardewi's recipes carefully, and several refer to ingredients that are not listed, or that do not have quantities specified. This renders them useless for practical purposes. Thus, the purchaser is paying for recipes that cannot be made from the information provided in the book. Not good enough.
Further, I do not like her "air-kneading" method, which I find messy and tedious. I far prefer the stretch and fold kneading that is advocated by most folk on this forum, and by the bona fide gurus like Hamelman, Reinhart etc.
I made her sourdough chocolate cake, following the recipe exactly, and it turned out more like a chocolate slice. Edible and quite nice, but not a cake! And nothing like the picture in her book. Of course, I may have unwittingly made some sort of error, but I am an experienced domestic cook who has turned out many a good non-sourdough chocolate cake, so the territory is not unfamiliar to me. I suspect the recipe is defective....it would not surprise me if there are errors in the ingredient quantities, given the many other typos, omissions and grammatical flaws throughout the book.
About the only thing her book has going for it is its appearance. It is beautifully presented aesthetically.
It's been relegated to the bottom of my bookshelf since I purchased Dan Lepard's far superior The Handmade Loaf (although Lepard does not focus exclusively on sourdough), and started accumulating great sourdough bread recipes from people like our own marvellously talented Shiao-Ping. With Hamelman, Reinhart and Glezer currently on their merry way from Amazon to my doorstep, I do not anticipate rousing the Mardewi book from its slumber any time soon.
I have been given Yoke Mardewi's book "Sourdough - From Pastries to Gluten-Free Wholegrain Breads" which is beautifully illustrated but although I haven't been through it thoroughly yet I have also noted some shortcomings. Even with my short bread-making experience I picked up on a serious error in the Parisian-Style Baguette ingredient ratios which in short are given as: 150g 1:1 white starter, 200g water, 375g strong white flour, 10g fava bean flour, 1 tsp salt. By my calculation this comes to 60% hydration and unless I'm very much mistaken the minimum hydration for a baguette recipe should be 70% and more usual is closer to 80%.
I also find the book very repetitive. For recipe after recipe the only thing that changes is the ingredients list, which is fine but it is not necessary to write out the whole procedure from measuring ingredients to baking bread again and again. It seems to be a cheeky way to fill up pages.
Reason I don't like her books is I'm not sure she bakes light enough.