April 1 is National Sourdough Bread Day. Why not celebrate by purchasing and eating a loaf of delicious sourdough bread? How about making a loaf if you have some sourdough starter ready? Alternatively, if you have never done so before, try making your own starter.

Sourdough bread is made by fermenting bacteria and yeast to produce a leavening agent. The process produces lactic acid, which gives the bread its distinctive sour taste. Sourdough bread has been made for thousands of years, and it was definitely a part of the culinary tradition of early Canadian settlers.

Catherine Parr Traill (1802-1899) is well-known for her writings about life in Upper Canada, especially those on the natural environment. One of her books is The Canadian Settler’s Guide with subtitle The Female Emigrant’s Guide, and Hints on Canadian Housekeeping, published in 1857. This book contains an extensive section on making bread, including a survey of different leavening agents (with instructions on making your own by boiling hops) and various recipes. There are, in addition, many useful tips about other foodstuffs and household matters, as well as interesting facts about the population of Upper Canada at the time.

Here at Faded Page, we have a number of other works by Catherine Parr Traill.To help us make available other important public-domain works like this one, please join us and proof a few pages. For more information about how to volunteer, check out our companion site, Distributed Proofreaders Canada.