This may be the most random thing you are going to read today: Seamus Blackley, the Xbox creator, sought a bread using Egyptian yeast found in a ceramic of 4,500 years. The event makes a little more meaningful, however, when we find that Seamus is, besides being a video game and physical designer, a great amateur bakery.
Understand:
- In 2019, the Xbox creator used Egyptian yeast of 4,500 years to bake a bread;
- At the time, Seamus Blackley detailed the experience on his former Twitter profile, also revealing how he got the ingredient;
- With the help of a microbiologist, an archaeologist and Harvard University, Seamus got some yeast extracted from an ancient Egyptian ceramics;
- He cultivated the substance until he was ready for baking and, after baking the dough, described its flavor and aroma as “amazing.”
In 2019, Blackley used his profile on the old Twitter (present -day X) to detail the entire bakery process – and, more importantly, how he ended up putting his hands on the millennial ingredient. Although the Seamus account is currently unavailable, the Deputy He reported that the physique had already ventured with different bread recipes and gradually began to be interested in old yeast.
Read more:
Egyptian fermentation bread of Xbox creator was “amazing”
Blackley explained in his publications that yeast is largely responsible for flavoring bread. However, of course the yeast we use today is quite different from the one done for thousands and thousands of years. He then began his search for old yeasts, with the help of Microbiologist Richard Bowman of the University of Iowa, and the Serena Archaeologist of the University of Queensland.
Thanks to the pair, Seamus traveled to the Harvard University Peabody Museum and, with the museum’s team’s permission, got some yeast extracted from the pores of an Egyptian ceramic dated no less than 4,500 years. “Our extraction process was basically a form of fracking (oil extraction technique) microbiological,” he explained on Twitter.
Seamus spent a week cultivating the substance in his home until he was ready for the oven. When the time arrived, he looked a natural fermentation bread and carved a hieroglyph in his peel. As for the taste, the Xbox creator spared no details: “the aroma and taste are amazing”, and sweeter than modern breads. “I had to stop me from eating too much because it was one in the morning.”