I threw away my sourdough (aka mother or seed) starter
three weeks ago. She, my mother starter, that is, had been with me three years.
There were some misgivings about just flushing her down the toilet but she
smelled off and I just as soon have her gone. I was in semi-recovery from a
combination stomach virus and hormonal shift and while everything smelled off
the last thing I ate before tossing the cookies was my homemade sourdough bread.
For days I laid blame on the “mother” and all she wrought until sense came back.
If she was truly off, I finally realized, the bread wouldn’t have risen and the
oven heat would have killed the bacteria. Still, it felt good clearing out the
fridge and anything that could make me feel better at that point had higher
ratings than a three year old relationship. Hmm, maybe that is why I
am still single. Regardless, today I start anew.
[Note: This sourdough starter is adapted from Peter
Reinhart’s recipe.]
Day One. Briskly mix together ¼ cup water and 3.5 tbsp flour.
(I use Kamut). Cover loosely with a plastic and towel wrap and set in a draft
free place. Whisk two to three times a day for 48 hours.
Funny how starting anew with my mother starter parallels my
relationship with my birth mother. I’ve written about her before but to
summarize she died of pneumonia thirty-four years ago, the complications of an alcohol saturated liver. I was angry with her for many years and didn’t
really start grieving until just under two decades ago. Even then, grief was
interlaced with bouts of rage and it’s only been this past twelve months that
things have really shifted. I wrote about that shift last fall and since then I
feel her presence on a regular basis. It’s like having the mother I never knew
but in retrospect was always there. It’s a tremendous comfort, a support I lean
on most every day. So throwing mom, the mother starter that is, down the toilet
has a certain symbolic resonance: like tossing out old resentments and
what-ifs. Time to get on with life.
A sourdough starter begins very simply. As stated above, it’s
just flour and water. Sure I could use pineapple juice or cheat and use another
person’s starter to birth mine but I like the purity of the two basic
ingredients. But even that is a fallacy: flour is not so pure. With naturally occurring yeast and bacterial
spores, flour, when mixed with water, produces an enzyme called amylase (also
present in human saliva). Amylase breaks down starch to eventually produce
glucose and fructose. These sugars feed the yeast spores and voila, the starter
grows.
Forty eight hours after first blending the flour and water
and whisking several times in between I lift the wrap. Several tiny bubbles dapple
the surface, an increase, however small, from the last time I looked. It is tentative these first few days of birth for it is the time when things can
go wrong. You don’t need a sterile kitchen for this process but still, “bad”
bacteria can enter the scene and wreck havoc. It’s okay (though not great) if you don’t find
bubbles after it sits for however long but anytime your starter smells off, toss and start again. I sniff.
Relief fills me. There is no smell except what one would expect from flour.
Time to add two tablespoons each of water and flour and
whisk again.
Day 5. I open the
wrap and my lovely starter is frothy and strewn with a multitude of miniscule
bubbles. I hum Don Ho’s theme song.
I add 5 tbsp flour and 3 tbsp water, whisk and set aside
again.
It’s important to keep up with the whisking process. Good
bacteria is nurtured on good air circulation. Effective wound management works
the same way but it also reminds me of the grieving process.
For too many years I disallowed thoughts of mom. There was
no funeral or memorial service (she didn’t want one) and my family just seemed to stop talking
about her after she died. It was like one day she was there and the next not. I
was a young woman filled with confused and inchoate emotions. I teetered between
angry outbursts, depression, hyperactivity and inconsistent moods. Although I didn’t realize it back then I was
angry at her for dying but I was also enraged that she wasn’t fully there for
me when she was alive. But this knowledge was all in retrospect. I had no real understanding
of this nor of the grief that lay below. Instead, through naïve ignorance, I
let the grief stagnant.
The grieving process needs to be aired. Not everyone, of
course, grieves the same but regardless of how it is done—counselling, talking
to friends, artwork or journaling—it needs to be expressed. Grief must mix with
the air in the room, be free to expand and fill in the cracks left by that
which was lost. Without this process we risk, just like the mother starter I
make today, stunting our growth, becoming stale or, worst of all, souring.
Day 6: The starter has grown twice its size and appears
light and foamy. The recipe calls to discard half and mix in 7 tbsp flour
with 3 tbsp water. Use your judgment on this. I bake a lot of bread, about
twice a week. So I blend more than
half my burgeoning starter with about 9 tbsp flour. I also like a drier
consistency with which to work. I add less water so I can knead rather than whisk it. I set it aside overnight.
When I finally started the grieving process I had lots to
work through. If we don’t grieve a major event, the small ones, the ones that
occur in everyone’s daily life, compound it. Anything sad or even reminiscent of the blues
looms large and forbidding. Many of us just don’t go there and put up a façade of
always thinking “happy thoughts” or erect barriers to avoid getting close to
anyone again. But the grief process or mourning needs to be done. And although mourning
an age-old event can sometimes feel like unwrapping an ornately decorated box with
complicated ties and intricate folds only to find another below; and another below
that, it is not as tedious or ominous as it sounds. In fact, although at times
heart wrenching, grieving fills one with wonder at the complexity of human
emotion and the innate, but often hidden desire for stability and safety. Of
course, I didn’t always feel that way, it is more in retrospect, but these last
fifteen years have helped me mature in a way I never would without the grieving
process.
Day 7: My last prep work is complete. I blend the starter
one more time, cover tightly with plastic, and set in the fridge. Tomorrow,
after a month long hiatus, I make bread again.
The grief process has allowed me to become my own mother starter.
Like the wondrous fermented blend of flour and water I, too, am now more prepared to
birth new life into whatever metaphoric loaf of bread I choose to create. Stay tuned.
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