Sourdough has taken over my life
And eating season in America has begun
Sourdough is life
Back in 2020, at the height of the pandemic, home-made sourdough was a thing. Everyone was getting into baking, and making their own sourdough. Shops were running out of flour and yeast. Well, I’m often behind the times on every cultural trend and cultural moment, and I didn’t do any baking in 2020 beyond the usual bread in the bread machine. I have finally, four years later, made it onto the sourdough bandwagon.
A mere nine days ago (not even two weeks!) a friend’s dad gave me some sourdough starter. He owns a small commercial bakery (which we visited on our trip to Phoenix last year and it was most excellent), and the starter he gave me was 85 years old. He showed me how to feed it, gave me some basic instructions on how to look after it, and away I went, precious starter in a mason jar tucked in the boot of the minivan.
When we got home that evening, about four or five hours after the starter was first put into the jar, it was overflowing. Made a bit of a mess. So I did the only logical thing: I started the dough for a loaf of sourdough bread. The next day, I had a beautiful, perfect loaf of sourdough bread, exactly the kind I’d been paying about $8 for at the local bakery. The crust was chewy, the bread was light, and there was the unmistakable sourdough tang in the flavour. The first loaf of sourdough was a success.
Since then, I’ve been baking a lot more sourdough things. Sourdough everything. In the first eight days since getting that starter, I’ve made three loaves of bread, sourdough pancakes, sourdough muffins, sourdough crackers, sourdough banana muffins, and sourdough chocolate chip cookies.
I’ve divided the starter into two jars. One jar is in the fridge, and I’ve largely been ignoring it (another friend who also makes sourdough told me she keeps her starter in the fridge and only feeds it once every few weeks). One jar is on the kitchen counter. This one gets fed every day, like a slightly less demanding child. The instructions I was given about feeding the starter was to put in equal parts starter, flour, and water, and mix it all until no dry flour remains. Cover. Let the starter do its ferment-y, activate-y, yeasty thing.
The counter starter is the one I’ve been using for all the baking (my ‘baking lifestyle’, as King Arthur puts it, has become baking something every couple of days). The one in the fridge that I’ve been neglecting is the one I think of as my backup starter — if I accidentally kill the one on the counter, then I can activate the one in the fridge. It’s good to have a backup.
Next on the list to try: sourdough noodles, sourdough brownies, sourdough crepes, sourdough sandwich bread (I wonder if I can do that in the bread machine?) and, if I’m feeling particularly ambitious, sourdough cinnamon scrolls.
Eating season is upon us
A couple of years ago, I read a book* about food in America (as I’m wont to do), and the author described something I found amusing: eating season. She reported that the eating season in America begins at Halloween, at the end of October, and continues until late February, when the Super Bowl takes place. In between Halloween and the Super Bowl, there is a myriad of eating occasions: Thanksgiving, Christmas/Hanukkah/Kwanzaa, New Year’s Eve/Day, and Valentine’s Day. These are all occasions where food marketers and the food industry encourage us to eat and indulge, to splurge and treat ourselves. After all, it’s a special occasion!** Generally, we happily oblige. I do think it’s kind of ridiculous that this kind of aggressive food marketing and message about indulgence is common and accepted for a third of the year, but I do kind of like there is a term for this period of the year.
In our family, we marked the beginning of eating season in the usual way: Halloween potluck with our neighbours and then trick or treating. This year, Tilly dressed up as Princess Meow from the Princess in Black book series, and Charlie was a chef (he told me the day before Halloween that he changed his mind and wanted to be a bin truck driver. That’s way too late to be changing your mind, mate. Maybe next year). They went trick or treating on our usual blocks and collected 3.3kg (or 7.2lb) of sweets. Every year, they get a bit older, a bit faster, and collect a bit more. I wonder how much they’ll collect when they’re big kids.
*I wish I remembered which book this was from, but alas I don’t.
**In our family, we also have three birthdays in November and one in February, so it’s like extra eating season.
Hi Jen, please won't you post the recipe for bread machine sourdough if you mange to crack it? I went through the exact phase of sourdough baking when I got my starter, but lately mine has been sitting dormant in the fridge! Your article has inspired me to get it (and some baking) going again. Thanks!