The exact origin of this bread is still a mystery, but the earliest recipe found for salt-rising bread is a recipe from 1778 from a mountainous region that is now West Virginia but was then the western frontier area of Virginia. Evidence suggests that it was pioneer women in the Appalachian Mountains who discovered how to make this bread, as there was no yeast available to raise bread in this isolated region, but there is no doubt these women knew about yeast-raised breads. Commercial yeast was unavailable until the 1860s and sourdough cultures would not have survived in such isolated areas prior to refrigeration. Appalachian pioneers in the 1700s were familiar with adding salts, such as
potash and
saleratus, to their biscuits and cornbread to make them rise. Perhaps they tried a concoction of corn and milk plus salts, allowed it to set in a warm place by their
hearth, then made a bread dough, watched it rise, and baked bread. There are similar fermented breads in a few isolated parts of the world, such as the
Greek islands,
Cyprus,
Turkey,
South Africa, and
Sudan, that use
lentils and
chickpeas. The wild fermented breads in Turkey (
Karahoyuk bread) and Sudan (Gergoush bread) have traditions that are thousands of years old, yet these breads are fermented by the same wild microbes as in salt-rising bread. Currently, the tradition of making salt-rising bread is kept alive by relatively few individuals and bakeries that tend to be clustered in the central to eastern United States. It is particularly popular in Kentucky, Indiana, West Virginia, Southern Tier of New York, Western Pennsylvania and pockets in Michigan. ==Bacterial fermentation==