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To the tourist sourdough. French bread has become almost as much a San Francisco tourist attraction as the Golden Gate Bridge and the cable car. And according to a well circulated rumor, San Francisco's famous sourdough French bread can be made only here. Indeed, several have even tried

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but failed always to duplicate that famous sour taste. But now that fact, notwithstanding, the federal government has appropriated $49,000 to a research project which is intended to see if sourdough French bread can be duplicated elsewhere. There is no patent on the sourdough process and if there

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ever was a hidden formula, it has been lost by the deaths of the originators of the process, the government would like to know what it is that allows the starter bacteria to perform in a unique manner in the San Francisco bakeries and fail elsewhere. If the

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uniqueness is a chemical distinction rather than environmental, it may be possible to produce concentrated dairy starters that you could buy in the store and make your own sourdough French bread. Two San Francisco firms have been responsible for baking and circulating the popular bread around the world

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and have been in business since the turn of the century or before. Is there a real secret to the making of French bread? Oh, there's a lot of mystery behind it. But I doubt very much if there's a secret, today's scientific advancements. I'm sure somebody will

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come down to putting it into a formula stage. We've given our formula and pieces of our starter to not only competitors but to other bakeries in other areas. And so far they haven't been able to duplicate it. So I think we're a little safe right now.

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Country or before. Get real sour. Right. You girl. Right. It might seem unheard of that. The federal government is trying to find the secret to an un patented commercial process. A process about which there is no true secret according to those who make their

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living in French bread. But we know and the manufacturers know that the real secret is not the French bread. It's San Francisco and tourists are here from around the world every day. Proving that for eyewitness news, Steve Huss reporting.