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Cereals and bread from Aotearoa New Zealand

Rēwena parāoa (Māori potato-starter sourdough)rēwena parāoa

Boiled, mashed potato is stirred with flour and sugar and left warm for one to several days, until yeasts and lactic bacteria make this starter (the "bug") rise and bubble. The bug is kneaded with flour and water, and the dough is baked into a sweet-and-sour loaf; a small piece of the dough is kept back to start the next bug, and some potato cultures have been kept going for many decades.

Fully documentedCereals and bread25 h – 3 days

Recipe

Rēwena parāoa (Māori potato-starter sourdough), a photo from Wikimedia Commons
Photo: Groot42, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons
Amounts from a sourceA reader's recipe posted in the comments on the Food Lovers rewena starter page (a New Zealand recipe site); the site says its member recipes are not individually tested. Quantities are in cups and make two loaves or rounds. A scoop of about two dessert spoons of the dough is kept back to start the next bug.
Potatoes3 mediumFor the starter; peeled, sliced and boiled in 1 cup of water to a mash[foodlovers]
Flour2 cupsFor the starter, added with the sugar once the mash is lukewarm[foodlovers]
Sugar1 tspFor the starter[foodlovers]
Feed for days two and three1 medium potato, 1 cup water, 1 tsp sugarThe potato is boiled in the water; 1 cup of the cooled liquid is stirred into the starter with the sugar[foodlovers]
Potato starter (bug)all of the starterFor the bread[foodlovers]
Flour5 cupsFor the bread, sifted with the salt[foodlovers]
Salt and baking soda1 tsp eachThe baking soda is sprinkled over the starter in the well of flour[foodlovers]
Waterabout 1 cupMore if the dough needs it[foodlovers]
Starterother: potato starter (bug) of mashed potato, flour and sugar, back-slopped and fed like a sourdough

Total time across the recorded steps: 25 h – 3 days

Start
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What changes: Sliced potatoes boil soft in a little water and are mashed

Step 1 of 4
Boil and mash the potatoes
Time
Not documented
Temperature
Not documented
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented
Which microbes the steps name, step by step
Yeasts
L. paracasei

The potatoes are peeled, sliced and boiled in 1 cup of water to a mashing consistency, then mashed with the water left in the pot. Output: lukewarm mashed potato.

Flavour
Not documented
Texture
Not documented
Colour
Not documented

Microbes at work in this step

Not documented for this step.

Method

Measured measured in a studySet fixed by a specification or tested recipeReported one source reports itTypical a general value, not sourced for this fermentUnconfirmed not yet checked against a source

At a glance

Boiled, mashed potato is stirred with flour and sugar and left warm for one to several days, until yeasts and lactic bacteria make this starter (the "bug") rise and bubble. The bug is kneaded with flour and water, and the dough is baked into a sweet-and-sour loaf; a small piece of the dough is kept back to start the next bug, and some potato cultures have been kept going for many decades. Made in 4 steps over 25 h – 3 days. The longest step, make and ferment the bug, takes 24 h – 3 days (Wikipedia). Lacticaseibacillus paracasei and Saccharomyces cerevisiae do most of the fermenting.

Key numbers
Main step24 h – 3 daysReported[wp][foodlovers]Make and ferment the bug
Temperature200 °CReported[foodlovers]Shape and bake

What makes this one different

Rēwena is leavened by a starter built on cooked potato, flour and sugar instead of flour and water alone. In the one starter studied, the lactic acid bacteria isolates were identified as Lacticaseibacillus paracasei and the yeast isolates as Saccharomyces cerevisiae.

Related ferments

Safety

The potatoes are boiled before the starter is made, and the loaf is baked in a 200 °C oven in the recipe used.

History and sources

Every number is labelled with how it is known. How this atlas is made

Sun et al. 2022 write that Māori have baked rēwena for more than a century, and that some back-slopped potato starters have been maintained for many decades. Rēwena transliterates the English word "leaven" and parāoa the word "flour", which also came to mean bread or dough.

  1. [sun2022] Sun J., Silander O., Rutherfurd-Markwick K., Wen D., Davy T.P., Mutukumira A.N. 2022, Phenotypic and genotypic characterisation of Lactobacillus and yeast isolates from a traditional New Zealand Māori potato starter culture, Current Research in Food Science 5:1287–1294, doi:10.1016/j.crfs.2022.08.004paper
  2. [wp] Wikipedia, Rēwena bread (outline and word origins)wiki
  3. [foodlovers] Food Lovers (foodlovers.co.nz), Rewena Bread Starter, with a reader's rewena paraoa recipe in the comments (reader recipe, not individually tested by the site)web