Baking and pastry work in Italian

Second on this list stands il lievito di birra, and read word for word it sends an English reader to the wrong shelf. It says beer yeast, and « brewer’s yeast » exists in English too — but it names something else entirely: the deactivated powder sold as a food supplement, bitter, full of B vitamins and thoroughly dead. Nothing from that shelf will raise a loaf. Il lievito di birra is the ordinary fresh yeast of any Italian supermarket, the small foil-wrapped cube in the chill cabinet, and the dried version in sachets carries the same name, il lievito di birra secco. The name records where the stuff once came from, when bakers bought the surplus from the brewery next door; the arrangement ended and the label stayed. Two things follow for anyone reading a recipe. Wherever an Italian recipe asks for lievito di birra, reach for « fresh yeast » or « active dried yeast » and for nothing else. And when the supplement really is meant, Italian says il lievito alimentare, in flakes — a separate name for a separate thing, where English leaves one name doing both jobs.