One of the reasons I’ve been experimenting with spamlike substances lately is that my bread has not been turning out right, so I need to eat something in the evening besides sandwiches. I think the heat here has killed my yeast. So, I bought a package of little yeast packets, labelled "levure chimique." I thought that would be good, the yeast was in small pink packets, so it would stay fresh until I needed it, and I would have nice loaves of bread again.
So, I measure the ingredients into the bread machine, including my nifty new levure chimique. It looked a little strange, totally white, and not yeasty at all, but I’m a linguist, right? I read the package. Levure= yeast, chimique=chemical, therefore I had chemical yeast. Ok, so I didn’t know what chemical yeast would be, but I thought maybe it would be some kind of yeast that doesn’t die in tropical heat.
I discerned that further research into the meaning of levure chimique would be necessary when the bread machine turned out a dense lump of something vaguely breadish but inedible.
Baking powder.