It is really a different (LITERAL) animal than a sack of flour or even its desiccated cousins in the dry yeast packet. It has moods and very specific needs, in terms of temperature and humidity. Sometimes it spills out over the lip of the jar. RS: I think the big surprise, ESPECIALLY if you get into sourdough baking because it means delicious carbs (rather than because of an interest in fermentation), is just how truly and palpably alive the starter is. JZ: What's the substance of the "ohhh"? If people are making a sourdough starter because they don't have yeast, or because everyone else is doing it, or whatever, what can they expect to be sort of passively learning from that experience?
And I really do think that, beside being a key part of this iconic (delicious) substance, sourdough starter also offers this broader "ohhh" about cooking and eating and like, the whole natural world. It's probably not a very kind commentary on me, or people like me, and the way we live and eat that it should seem so strange at first-but, oh well! You've got to learn sometime. That it's as much a weird roommate as a kitchen ingredient, I mean. Robin Sloan: Well, this is what happened to me, and I think it's true for a lot of people, especially people who have lost touch with old foodways: the reality of a sourdough starter is honestly SHOCKING. It's as much a weird roommate as a kitchen ingredient. The reality of a sourdough starter is honestly SHOCKING. What have you observed about the rise (sorry) in sourdough culture (sorry)? I feel like it goes beyond "I want bread and I don't have yeast." Jess Zimmerman: Sourdough came out a few years ago, but it's newly relevant today because sourdough has become the hot quarantine hobby for people who are lucky enough to be able to think beyond survival. I asked him what sourdough is doing for us right now, and what lessons it can teach us for the future. Sloan's book, which came out in 2017, predated our current moment, but also kind of prefigured it it features an adrift and alienated tech worker who is brought back to herself when she's given a mysterious, almost otherworldly sourdough starter and begins baking perfect bread. For help interpreting this sourdough fixation, I turned to Robin Sloan, author of Sourdough.
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