Honey Baby Darlin' - A Serial Memoir

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Excerpt from Honey Baby Darlin', Book One - The Farm

“Ew! What is that?” I asked, noticing the burbling glop in the jar in the fridge.
“Sourdough Starter,” Gloria said, as she took it out, removed some of the glop from the jar,
added some other stuff to it and put it back.
“Why did you do that?” I asked.
“You have to feed it,” she said.
“Ew! It's alive?”

In a spring-top jar on the top shelf of the refrigerator was Gloria's prized, seven year old Sourdough Starter, a wedding gift from a San Francisco girlfriend. Sourdough Starter: a creature that lived in the fridge that had to be fed once a week. Sourdough likely originated around 1500 BC, in Egypt, and was the first form of leavening noted. Through the Middle Ages, Sourdough leavened most bread, then was replaced by the barm from beer brewing and then later cultured yeast.

The creature in the fridge is a batter of flour and water, filled with living yeast and bacteria, which form a stable symbiotic relationship, creating a little tribe of microorganisms, and, with proper care and feeding, and very short walks from fridge to counter and back to fridge, can live for eons. I named our Sourdough Starter Fred. In a Cub Scouts craft class, Martin made a 12 inch woven plastic leash which he hung around the top of the jar.

To make Sourdough Bread

Remove some of the Starter from your container, blend it with some flour and make dough, always adding something back to the container. The yeast propagates, and leavens your bread in its own gaseous way.

Blend a cup of warm water and a cup of flour, and pour it into a clean, wide-mouthed glass jar with a rubber seal: or a crock with a loose lid; plastic containers are OK, but not ideal. They're plastic. Metallic containers are chemically reactive and would probably turn your starter to some other science experiment (for the same reason, avoid using metal utensils to stir your starter).

That's it, Darlin'. You can add a little commercial yeast to a Starter to give it a boost and make it lighter, but sourdough snobs frown on this. And, Starter made with commercial yeast produces less distinctive sour flavor than the real thing. Experiment! Try this, birth your own.

Sourdough Starter has to be kept warm to propagate, so experienced miners and settlers in California carried a well-guarded pouch of starter either around their neck or on a belt inside their pants. Sourdough Bread became so common during the Northern California Gold Rush, that "Sourdough" became a general nickname for the gold prospectors, and "Sourdough Sam" still reigns supreme as the mascot of the San Francisco 49ers.

Feed Your Creature

For three or four days, keep your Fred in a warm place; 70-80 degrees, no hotter than 100! High temperature will kill your little budding blob. The yeast already in the flour will grow quickly under these conditions. To feed the Starter, discard half of it and add a half-cup of flour and a half-cup of water, every 24 hours. It will form a liquid on top with a truly enchanting fragrance (especially if you like beer) which is called Hooch, an alcoholic froth, which, according to legend, is shortened from Tlingit Hootchinoo, the name of an Alaskan indigenous tribe that distilled a type of liquor. It is what makes sourdough sour dough!

When the Hooch forms, you have achieved Sourdough Starter. Mix it back in. Keep the starter in your fridge, with a loose lid on it - allow a little breathing space. Feed it once a week, or so. If you enjoy anthropomorphizing microorganisms, be sure to name your Creature.

Proofing the Sponge

Before you make dough, begin with a sponge, a fermented batter. Pour 2 cups of Sourdough Starter into a large glass or ceramic bowl. Warming the bowl for few minutes with warm water helps create the proper environment.

Add a cup of warm water and a cup of flour to the bowl. Stir well, and set it in a warm place for several hours. This is called "proofing," or fermenting. The longer you proof the sponge, the more sour the flavor. The batter may be used for pancakes, waffles, muffins, bread or cake. The proofing-time varies, but setting your sponge out to proof overnight is great.

To use in a recipe, or share with a friend, take 2 cups starter out and then add more flour and water to your Starter.

Try these recipes from the book: 1. Sourdough Bread 2. Sourdough Onion Bread