Boudin Bakery was founded during the Gold Rush by French immigrant Isidore Boudin and focused on distinctive sourdough bread for nearly two centuries. The starter's origins are unclear; it may have been passed by a '49er or brought from France, but it contains an airborne yeast characteristic of San Francisco, lactobacillus sanfranciscensis. By 1852 nearly one in six San Franciscans were French, creating an immediate market. Horse-drawn Boudin bread wagons delivered scored rounded loaves, with delivery-men placing bread on nails outside doors. In the 1860s Boudin declined to adopt Fleischmann's commercial yeast, maintaining its traditional starter.
The subtitle of the Boudin Bakery's story should be The Virtue of Stubbornness: Founded in the thick of the Gold Rush by one of the sudden city's many French immigrants - Isidore Boudin - the bakery carried on doing its one main thing, its distinctive sourdough bread, through the better part of two centuries. There are some overlapping tales about the bread's starter.
Boudin had a ready-made market here, since, as of 1852, nearly one in six of the 36,000 San Franciscans came from France - many of them escaping turmoil and widespread unemployment in the mother country. Soon enough, the horse-drawn Boudin bread-wagon became a familiar sight on the hilly streets, its delivery-men pushing the distinctively scored, rounded loaves onto nails customers left protruding next to their doors.
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