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This is where it starts the secret of San Francisco's sour French bread. This is called a sponge or a kind of a mother dough. Back in 18 56 when this Parisian bakery began operations under a different name. Then of course, somebody started making this mother dough.

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Since then, parts of the mother dough are kept and added to so that the bakery always has a constant start. A kind of a point X for the formula. And this small amount of the mother dough when added with flour and salt and water, we will

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produce this giant pan full of ready to bake San Francisco sour French bread enough for 850 loaves. Rudy Gomez is the head baker here at the Parisian Bakery, which is one of only two in the Bay Area to produce genuine sour French bread. That means the

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bread contains only the starter dough, flour, water and salt, no yeast. Whatever. A couple of years ago, the government gave a $50,000 grant to study whether the San Francisco bread could be produced anywhere else. They might have saved the money and asked Rudy Gomez. He says

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it could be but conditions inside the plant would have to be artificially created to duplicate the climate of San Francisco. And the technical skills required for the baking would almost prohibit that possibility. The Parisian is a full line bakery but is most famous for the French

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bread which is shipped around the world because the sour bread contains no yeast. It can be frozen and thawed and will retain most of its natural freshness. 40,000 loaves of the bread are produced here each weekday. That's nearly 10.5 million loaves of the French sour bread

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every year bread that goes all around the world is a kind of dinner time reminder of the Mystique we call the San Francisco scene. This is Ron majors reporting for eyewitness news.