Sourdough

Since the start of the COVID-19 Pandemic, many people old and young have found themselves with an abundance of undirected free time. Hours normally spent traveling or participating in large group activities were left noticeably empty. Sure, Netflix and social media do their best to fill the vacuum, but many eyes tire of staring at large and small screens after a few hours. The unusual fatigue that comes after about the third or fourth episode pushes many off the couch or out of bed. Many people found new hobbies and interests, but one common activity surprised me: sourdough bread.

I am aware that many are asking themselves at this very moment: “how is he going to say anything interesting about baking bread”, and to that I answer: I’m not, at least not interesting to most people. But on the off-chance that someone ever reads this and the even more unlikely event that such a person also bakes bread, they might feel that rare comfort that comes from shared passion. 

I stumbled onto sourdough quite by accident while watching a YouTube video from a cooking channel. The creator researched the science behind what are called “wild” sourdough starters. As many likely know, most bread contains what is called a leavening agent, usually yeast. While most bread yeast is purchased in jars or packets, yeast is actually floating all around us. It is attached to our skin, settled on our furniture, floating in the air. This single-cell fungus (I’m vastly oversimplifying here) works to convert sugar to alcohol. As a byproduct, the yeast produces CO2. The introduction of this gas into the bread creates bubbles that inflate the puff-up the bread causing it to rise. Once in the oven, that gas expands even more and the bubbles get bigger. Sourdough bread does not use normal store bought yeast, it uses a starter, which is a cultivated yeast colony. Usually kept in a jar, the starter must be fed and divided to keep the yeast healthy enough to rise the next loaf of bread. A “wild” sourdough starter means that the starter is not divided from a previous starter or store bought yeast. It is collected from the air around you. This video included instructions on how to make your own wild sourdough starter. Being an adventurous kitchen experimenter, I had to give it a try. After a few months of growing the starter and making a few terrible loaves of bread, I finally got into the rhythm of making a loaf of bread from my wild starter. 

As I baked bread week after week I began to understand it as an important and spiritual ritual. With each new loaf, the result became my bread of life. This is not to equate the bread with the Body of Christ or even the Christian sacrament of communion, but the production of bread shares many attributes with the eucharist. I saw the bread as something that came from and required life to exist, and its end result sustained life. The raw ingredients without the starter were bland and flat, but the addition of 50 grams of starter, or life, transformed the dough into something beautifully delicious. The fact that the starter is living means that it responds to environmental conditions. Changes in ingredients, weather, temperature, moisture, or feeding schedule all change the way it works with the bread. Working with living things means acknowledging the changing things around us, and reminds me of the consistent things. 

Anyone who makes sourdough has probably experienced the second connection to communion: shared joy. The very word “communion” means a shared experience. When baking sourdough bread, the sharing happens pre and post baking. The constant feeding and splitting of the starter results in excess starter material. Normally thrown away or washed down the sink, any sourdough baker is usually happy to give it to another aspiring enthusiast. Once the bread is baked, sharing pieces with family, friends, and neighbors is an almost mandatory step if the product is to be consumed before spoilage. 

As the starter must be maintained, its presence is a constant reminder and prompt to continue to craft, to bake another loaf. So, a simple ritual emerges. The feeding, mixing, rising, waiting, and baking are carried out without much thought or intention, merely a weekly occurrence with a nourishing product. The presence of ritual has become an important part of my adult life. At some point after college, I discovered that many of my mental health crises were the side effects of a lack of stability; inconsistent routines, poor sleep habits, poor diet, etc. The implementation of habits and rituals became reminders of my values and took the “choosing” out of making good choices. Like the eucharist, the ritual of making bread is a constant reminder of the goodness around us, of the joy of community, and of the necessary maintenance of all good things.

For me sourdough also became a reminder of the place I once lived. My starter was captured and cultivated in Roanoke, and now that I live in Huntsville I see the bread as a connection to that place. Its living part is from the very air in that city. The first (edible) loaves were shared with friends in that small apartment where my wife and I once lived. Taking the starter to a new city meant taking part of that city with us. It also symbolized that while we were saying goodbye to so many good things, the things we were taking with us were more important. The restaurants, houses, and mountains would say, but the community, the friendships, and the love would remain. The bread, tended to and growing like those things became a symbol. The fact that it too is living, gowning, and producing goodness only adds to the joy it brings. 

I baked two loaves of bread yesterday. One was delivered to our neighbors and new friends in Huntsville, and the other is already being enjoyed for lunch and snacks. I don’t want to overstate the importance of sourdough in my life. There will likely come a day when I drop or neglect my starter and abandon the hobby. I will move on to other things or just get too busy, but the things that it represents will remain. The goodness that it produces is temporary, but the joy it sustains will, Lord willing, remain.