The words "poolish" & "biga" have often been used with reference to sour
dough starters.

I can't find them in my dictionaries (Chambers & Collins) nor in the
online dictionary "dictionary.com".

I was interested in their etymology. Can anyone help?

Brian

On Wed, 27 Sep 2006 11:20:44 -0400, "Jeff Miller"
> wrote:

[---]

>Poolish: A French term for a wet yeasted pre-ferment that's usually and
>equal weight of flour to water.

I very much doubt that the word is French. The term is, of course,
used by bread makers here (as it is elsewhere) but is otherwise not a
current term in French.

It is not in the "Petit Robert" (the French equivalent of the
Webster's or the OED) either, and the double vowel combination "oo"
and the consonants "sh" are also not French.

I suspect that it is in French, as in English, a borrowed word from
somewhere else - perhaps Eastern Europe?

On Wed, 27 Sep 2006 15:09:24 -0400, "Jeff Miller"
> wrote:

>> I suspect that it is in French, as in English, a borrowed
>> word from somewhere else - perhaps Eastern Europe?
>
>Well, I'm pretty sure American bakers borrowed the term from French bakers?
>As far as where the French got the term ...

From Eastern Europe, as I originally surmised, but I only found that
out after what you wrote below set me thinking, and so I searched
around a bit.

>>From what I've read (primarily Jeff Hammelman's "Bread" and Peter Reinhart's
>"Bread Baker's Apprentice"), it seems the term came into use because it was
>believed that the technique was developed by a Polish baker.

Exactly. This is what I found:

<http://www.supertoinette.com/fiches_recettes/fiche_poolisch.htm>

Specifically "Mot d'origine polonaise désignant une pte liquide, une
bouillie faite d'une proportion égale de farine, d'eau et de levure
biologique".

>I've also read
>that the technique was developed in Vienna and brought to France in the late
>19th / early 20th century. Why it's called "poolish" instead of "polonais,"
>I have no idea.

I do - I think that in fact it must have come from Poland, but is not
Polish, but rather *Yiddish*. That would explain the "sh" ending, or,
in the spelling given on the web site I found, "isch".

Thanks for setting me in the right direction - I too, was always very
curious to know where that word came from, as I was certain that it
wasn't French.