Sourdough Hugs

Interesting and unusual times, these. My father – The Old Man – had a favorite expression for strange things. I use it myself now and again. Faced with something hard to believe, or head-shakingly true, he would shrug and say something like, “I’ve been to three sideshows at the Seattle World’s Fair and Cheyenne Frontier Day twice, but I ain’t never seen nothin’ like this…”

In these moments, I guess we turn to something we know and trust; something that has served us well in our lives. Thus, as I mentioned last week, I took up a conversation with my ancient (at least 150 years old) and utterly dependable sourdough starter, and created a little soul food. The resulting stacks of melt-in-your-mouth waffles (The Old Man called them “corrugated pancakes”) kicked off a pretty satisfying week of general quarantine.

Connecting with kids and grandkids got me thinking about comfort food and that sourdough which has been part of most all our lives. Far beyond immediate family, however, our particular strain of starter has enriched the lives of countless friends and acquaintances.

Given the ongoing demand for flour and yeast (thus, these momentary shortages), good sourdough starter is mighty handy. History tells us that sourdough is the oldest and most original form of leavened bread. Apparently, from Egypt it moved to Greece and then to Europe. Eventually, of course, sourdough cultures and the simple recipes for making them came to the New World, along with wheat and wheat flour.

Starters became family and cultural treasures carried through generations. Some just kept the simple “recipes” for gathering natural yeast from the air and regularly making new starters for such things as Amish friendship and sourdough breads. Search online today for either. John Jobson, long-time camping editor for “Sports Afield” magazine, loved sourdough and starters and often told folks how to make new ones. Start with a gallon crock (or large glass or ceramic bowl), add four cups flour, two tablespoons sugar, a tablespoon of vinegar and enough water to make a syrupy batter, then cover it loosely with cheesecloth, and keep it warm (not hot). Natural yeast settles onto it all and in ten days or so there will be a unique starter. Then pour off clear, yellow liquid, add water and flour, and let it bubble and grow. Starter thus in hand, the world is full of recipes for sourdough bread, pancakes, biscuits, or whatever you might want to make.

There is an endless variety of fine old and unique starters in the world, with quite a few living here in Paradise. Each will have some prized value to its owner, such as the one in Roslyn a couple decades back which made the finest bread I ever munched over a poker game. Starters run from really sour to almost sweet to the nose and tongue. I’ve tried dozens across the U.S. and remain very content with mine, which is remarkably mild with a sourness easily controlled by the clock. I love my sourdough and the bread, biscuits and food it gives me.

Every sourdough culture has a story. I acquired mine from my mom and beloved stepdad nearly six decades ago, and am now the senior keeper of the family’s pet starter. An old Alaska gentleman brought the starter to Seattle after his Klondike gold rush fever petered out early in the 1900s. He passed some of the culture on to a young couple in 1915, telling them he’d been handed a crock of it by an old sourdough during the ‘90s gold rush. That old sourdough had used it forever, carrying it north to the gold claims from “the states.” My folks got it in 1960, and passed some on to me in 1965. At the time, Mom said it probably wanted to be shared.

Over the years, that crock of starter has been hauled wherever I’ve gone. I have passed around sourdough bread, biscuits, cornbread and cobbler. I’ve picked up dozens of small crocks to fill with starter, and pass along, with pedigree and a couple recipes, to various souls in need of a specialty – on the premise that every outdoor-person needs a specialty meal. I took gallon jugs of sourdough batter to elk camp for many years. The poems celebrating those high-country pancakes were creative and joyful, if inappropriate for a family paper.

As we aficionados hand off our treasured starters, we warn about allowing for the redoubling of volume as the sourdough yeast culture grows. I once passed a crock on to Brad Johnson, editor of the paper for which I wrote three decades and some ago. He left it unattended in his warm truck. The resulting story, AThe Sourdough that Ate Castle Rock, Colorado,@ told of it spreading from his truck, creeping downtown, and clearing the way for a new downtown improvement project. After seeing his truck, I mostly believed his story.

We get fully attached to that living culture of natural yeast; it becomes part of our family history. Any time I add flour and water to my starter, it grows and expands and bubbles – just as it did for the old Alaskan sourdough.

Kids and grandkids got me musing about family sourdough and challenging times. When I was in grad school, in Kansas, we often ate sourdough pancakes and eggs, with homemade deer/antelope breakfast sausage and elderberry syrup (which turned the eggs blue). On one Sunday morning, after a week of sick and housebound kids, four-year-old Michelle looked up with a bite of pancake and blue egg on her fork and smiled, “Yum! It’s sourdough hugs!”

The more I think on it, sourdough hugs may be just what the doctor ordered for Corona Virus Quarantine.