I Did It Too: Why Did We All Make Sourdough During Quarantine?

Sarah Murdoch | Adventures with Sarah

Sitting somewhere in the back of my fridge, a plastic container sits festering, filled to the brim with a gooey white “mother.” Although recently neglected, this tub of stinky bread starter was an object of fascination and daily care just a few weeks ago. 

I have never made a sourdough starter, nor have I ever had an interest in doing so. While I love sourdough bread, everything I’d read in the past indicated that it is a long, laborious process with little promise of success. Why would I bother when my time is precious and I can buy fantastic sourdough from my local bakery? 

And then, COVID hit. Families across the globe locked themselves in their homes. Grocery stores and Costcos in the US were raided by Americans who have been low-key preparing for the apocalypse their whole lives. I admit it, I have had a bunker’s worth of staples in my pantry my whole life. I suspect that growing up during the Cold War, as well as in the Los Angeles area where we were always preparing for the next big earthquake, has made me into a survivalist/hoarder. So, what’s a girl to do while locked in her home with a 25 pound bag of flour and two hungry teenagers? Bake the Holy Grail of bread. Proper sourdough.

Sourdough is a common thing to find on the west coast, both in Seattle and San Francisco. The tradition we hear of in these parts is that it developed during the Gold Rush boomtown days of the 1880’s. Miners heading to the Klondike would flock to Seattle and San Francisco for provisions and transportation to find their fortunes. Grocery store yeast was not available back then, but a sourdough starter was a yeast that, once established, could be fed and reproduce indefinitely, a perfect staple for the long trek and rough life on the Klondike. If a Victorian miner could make this bread, certainly an experienced modern cook could do it too, no?

As it turns out, the making of sourdough in your own kitchen is something of a folkloric badge of achievement, an unattainable goal where perfection is elusive and results may vary by the minute. It reminds me of natural childbirth: you can do it the old-fashioned way, but why would you do that to yourself when there’s an easier way? Maybe that’s why everyone and their cousin collectively decided that this was THE quarantine project. If you’ve got acres of time without knowing the end, why not take on a quixotic project that will become a badge of honor? So, yes, I did it too.

It all started so simply. You need to make a “mother” or a starter that will produce yeast for leavening and also gives the bread its signature sour flavor. It’s just flour and water. Or is it? Some people add fruit juice. Others add stale bread dough. Others add store bought yeast, although this is frowned upon in bread purist circles. I am always down for being frowned upon, so I started with the elderly yeast jar in my pantry. I’m not really sure how old that yeast was, but likely older than my children, so it should be no surprise that my starter started at an Italian pace. It bubbled, but only when it felt like it. Frustrated, I veered more off the purist path and added (gasp) sugar to try and entice the yeast to burp and bubble more. It vaguely obliged, like a disinterested lover. 

Tending to the starter became a daily obsession. It sat on my counter for days, and I’d attempt to convince it to do something, anything. I added flour. Spiked it with pineapple juice. I bought fancy new yeast and gave it a jolt, which was a bit like putting a jet engine on the back of a Ford Fiesta. It exploded out of its container, but a few days later looked as lethargic as it had before. All of this experimentation led me to one conclusion: I was deeply bored.

After a couple of weeks toying with the starter, I decided to finally make a loaf. Doing my due diligence, I combed the internet and my cookbook collection to find the bast recipe. My research was somewhat disheartening as there were a million ways, but I chose a NY Times recipe since those seem to be reliable. The project took several hours of massaging, proofing, punching and proofing again, and the loaf that came out was…not great. It was dense. It was heavy. Kind of like an edible brick. My children obediently ate a few slices, although I suspect I’ll find those same slices hidden in their closets someday.

My failure at this project made me feel the hopelessness of the quarantine even more. Even with all of the time and attention paid to the project, it still failed, which seemed analogous to my career as a whole, seeing as how travel had completely collapsed as a profession. So much work and so much failure.

I stepped away from the project, set the starter in the fridge and focused on other things (like starting this website) but it bothered me that I’d been defeated. A few weeks passed and I decided to give it another try. This time, I was not following a recipe exactly. That’s not smart in baking, but it’s my genuine talent in cooking, I follow my instincts and create new recipes all the time. In being myself and approaching it my way, I left the judgmental purist approach aside. Setting several recipes side by side, I mixed and matched techniques and measurements. Added more starter, created a wet dough, spiked the whole thing with super-charged fresh yeast. I couldn’t tell you the recipe, I just eyeballed it the whole way. The key for me was using a wet dough recipe I was familiar with, and a technique for baking bread in a Dutch oven that I know produced a crisp crust. And you know what? It worked. Out of the oven came the most beautiful, crispy, fragrant loaf of sourdough I’d ever made. It was so beautiful, I honestly considered lacquering it and displaying it on a shelf, rather than eating it. 

And the taste? It was good. The crumb was a little denser than I’d have liked, and it wasn’t as sour as the store-bought kind, but that didn’t matter. What mattered was that I conquered it. I persisted, sourdough didn’t defeat me. That was a win I needed in a hopeless time.

Why is everyone making sourdough? I can’t vouch for others, but in a helpless moment, taking on a difficult but achievable project gave me the feeling that I could do something, anything, to move forward. Being stuck is the worst. Being literally stuck in your home when you’re an international tour guide is soul-crushing. This small act of self-improvement felt like breaking the chains, even just for a moment. Perhaps that is what we are all needing right now. And even if I’ll be on a no-carb diet for the next year to counter the added pounds from this experiment, it was worth it.