If you listen very carefully, you can hear it sing. It crackles and sighs as though with relief that it has at last escaped the blisteringly hot oven necessary for forming the fractured, golden crust. A freshly baked sourdough loaf is a truly glorious thing, and I'm not the only one who thinks it.
The world it would seem, has gone silly for sourdough. Social media feeds are crammed with photos of loaves of all shapes, sizes and shades of baked - some cut in half and presented to the camera in perfect symmetry to proudly show the telltale holes in the structure that denotes its superiority over lesser breads.
Getting hold of any sort of flour during lockdown became a national sport, with people staying up ever later in the hope that new coveted delivery slots would be released from online shops, and furtively passing on intel to fellow bread heads as to where the white (or wholemeal) stuff can be found. Flour mills nationwide unsurprisingly struggled to cope with this sudden increase in demand, and had to adapt their businesses accordingly to cater for the home baker alongside commercial bakeries, by packing flour into kitchen cupboard friendly 1kg bags. This of course takes more time and man power resulting inevitably in a backlog, and some suppliers were forced to close their online shops to new customers in order to catch up. Thankfully things have settled down somewhat, mills have risen to the challenge and flour is no longer as scarce as it was a few weeks ago.
So how did the making of a humble loaf of bread spark such a flour frenzy and become the number one lockdown pastime? Typically a loaf can take two days to make from start to finish (and that’s without the five to ten days spent creating the all important starter) and so it’s hardly a convenience during these limited food shopping times, where hour long queues outside supermarkets and empty shelves lead you to question if you really need to go. But now trapped in our homes with nothing more pressing than maybe a Friday night Zoom quiz with friends in our otherwise empty diaries, we have all the time in the world and the long lead time for a fresh, homemade sourdough loaf suddenly seems doable, and crucially, something to do.
“I’ve wanted to try and bake sourdough for quite a while, and now seemed the perfect time to learn how to bake it with plenty of time for trial and error” explains Nathan Divey, who would usually be travelling the world with the Mercedes AMG F1 team as Lewis Hamilton’s number one mechanic, but is now using his hands in a very different way during lockdown.
It has long been recognised that the act of baking is therapeutic and has a positive effect on mental health - the combination of measuring, mixing and kneading all require a level of concentration that when done mindfully can reduce stress. In these strange times when many people have had to stop working, and with the financial worries associated with job uncertainty or even loss, making sourdough provides the perfect antidote and process to focus on - a baking meditation of sorts.
For some it’s the challenge of mastering what seems like a tricky process - taking flour and water to make a ‘starter’, harnessing natural wild yeasts in the air until it becomes an active living thing, capable of making dough ferment and rise. All bread making is alchemy, but sourdough has become revered in the last few years thanks to the increase in small scale bakeries making and selling beautiful breads with character - the antithesis of bland, homogenised supermarket offerings - and enthusiastic amateurs using social media to showcase their sourdough creations.
“I never really knew how it was made until I started looking into it, and then when I realised it wasn’t the easiest bread to make, the challenge spurred me on even more” says freelance sports camera operator Aaron Ponton. “Having the extra time and not travelling at the moment meant I could also completely commit to making the starter” he adds.
My own sourdough obsession began four years ago, when I made my very first starter following a recipe in the ‘River Cottage Everyday’ book. I diligently fed it with fresh flour and water each day, discarding half of the old before adding the new. Eventually I was rewarded with a bubbly, yeasty jar of magic mixture with which to make my bread. The sheer satisfaction of successfully making my first loaf with such simple ingredients made the lengthy process worthwhile.
This appreciation of process is shared by Divey “I like the idea of making your starter from scratch with just water and flour, then 7 days later being able to make bread. No dried yeast or other ingredients, just flour, water and salt, but what you can get is amazing - such depth of flavour despite the simplicity”.
I thought I now knew sourdough - my loaves were all ok, they tasted good and my family appreciated them - but there was a nagging feeling that I could do better. Instagram showed me loaves that looked nothing like mine. They were more burnished, had a more open, holey crumb when cut open, considered the holy (holey?) grail in sourdough circles and something I had yet to achieve. I started to pay attention, to research and seek out and follow people whose loaves I wished I’d baked. One such guru was Martha De Lacey - one time journalist turned chef with a passion for all things sourdough. Her feed was full of enviable bread made with a mind boggling array of grains and flavour combinations. I noticed she ran one day sourdough courses from her kitchen in East London, and I signed up for one and told my husband that he was buying it for me for my birthday.
Under Martha’s relaxed tutelage, everything I thought I knew was turned on its head and I came away from the day with two loaves to bake at home, a jar of Martha’s starter and new knowledge which I have employed time and time again to turn out perfect loaves at home. She also stuffed us full of sourdough waffles and pizza, and in doing so opened up whole new realms of sourdough possibility. My husband tells me it’s the best money he didn’t know he’d spent.
When the lockdown began and travelling to F1 races for the foreseeable future stopped, I was left without work and with lots of time on my hands like many people. I noticed how many people were giving sourdough a go for the first time and I offered to email some notes to anyone who wanted them, to help them along. I expected a couple of responses, but I received 36 requests from all over the world - so universal is the desire to bake bread. For local friends I delivered jars of starter siphoned from mine to doorsteps, to give them a head start. I became an unofficial one woman sourdough helpline, fielding questions and scrutinising photos to determine what may have gone wrong, and dispensing advice on everything from oven temperatures; folding techniques and what might be up with Kevin, Seymour, Our Kate or Sandra (it’s traditional to name your starter - after all, it’s another mouth to feed).
When people started to post photos of their own loaves made with the help of my notes, I felt like a proud parent seeing all of my sourdough ‘babies’ out in the world and the knowledge passed on. The sense of accomplishment was palpable as was the newfound love for this most simple yet superior bread.
“I genuinely love the flavour and texture of it, with the crunchy crust and soft aerated centre, and now I have a level of respect for people who bake sourdough on a regular basis” says Aaron.
Fellow camera operator Sam Edmonds echoes the sentiment “Bread is one of life’s staples, and it’s very satisfying to be able to make it yourself. Also sourdough is so damn tasty!”.
We don’t know what the new normal will look like when this crisis has passed and people get back to work, but there’s no doubt that the soothing balm of baking has helped to ease the collective anxiety of the nation. Let’s hope that people continue to find solace in sourdough.
Sourdough gurus to follow for inspiration: