Jessica Badalana

Though it's been around for thousands of years, I feel like it really took the pandemic for sourdough to enter mainstream culture in the way that it did. I think that was a period of time when every person you knew, and maybe a lot of our listeners too, started a sourdough culture at home and started baking sourdough bread. It was like, you know, gold rush, but for sourdough.

And I had been saying sort of derisively that I didn't have a sourdough starter during the pandemic. I never baked sourdough bread. And then recently I found a photo that I posted to Instagram saying, That was of a melted container of sourdough starter. This was like April of 2020. And in fact, I did have a sourdough starter and I put it in my oven to keep it warm or coddle it.

And I had been saying sort of derisively that I didn't have a sourdough starter during the pandemic. I never baked sourdough bread. And then recently I found a photo that I posted to Instagram saying, That was of a melted container of sourdough starter. This was like April of 2020. And in fact, I did have a sourdough starter and I put it in my oven to keep it warm or coddle it.

I turned my oven on and I melted the plastic quart container that it was in. But I had blocked out the memory of ever having a sourdough starter during the pandemic, ever baking bread with it.

I turned my oven on and I melted the plastic quart container that it was in. But I had blocked out the memory of ever having a sourdough starter during the pandemic, ever baking bread with it.

It was buried trauma. But others fared a lot better than I did. And you see it now because people are still baking tons of sourdough bread at home.

It was buried trauma. But others fared a lot better than I did. And you see it now because people are still baking tons of sourdough bread at home.

Do you feel like we've sort of reached like peak sourdough at this point, or are there still places to go?

Do you feel like we've sort of reached like peak sourdough at this point, or are there still places to go?

Yeah, the third, Tartine book three, yeah.

Yeah, the third, Tartine book three, yeah.

Yeah, I mean, I think everyone knows about sourdough breads or sourdough rolls and English muffins and bagels, but there are all these applications for sourdough discard. You know, so once you've fed your starter and you have all this discard, people are kind of realizing, like, I don't want to just, like, discard my discard. I want to use this flavorful matrix, you know, to work for me.

Yeah, I mean, I think everyone knows about sourdough breads or sourdough rolls and English muffins and bagels, but there are all these applications for sourdough discard. You know, so once you've fed your starter and you have all this discard, people are kind of realizing, like, I don't want to just, like, discard my discard. I want to use this flavorful matrix, you know, to work for me.

And so it's getting added to all sorts of interesting things. You know, and here in South Portland, Maine, there's a bakery called Night Moves that I love. Oof.

And so it's getting added to all sorts of interesting things. You know, and here in South Portland, Maine, there's a bakery called Night Moves that I love. Oof.

And the baker, Carrie Haney, is adding sourdough discard to her cacao brownie. And it's mind-blowing. It has such a depth of flavor, and it plays so nicely off the chocolate. And it just kind of shows you the opportunity that people have with sourdough discard as an ingredient unto itself.

And the baker, Carrie Haney, is adding sourdough discard to her cacao brownie. And it's mind-blowing. It has such a depth of flavor, and it plays so nicely off the chocolate. And it just kind of shows you the opportunity that people have with sourdough discard as an ingredient unto itself.

Well, and that's what I was saying. I mean, there's so much to talk about that I think we had to tease out one thing that we could focus on because we could talk for, I mean, we did when we were working on The Big Book of Bread. We talked for years, actually years.

Well, and that's what I was saying. I mean, there's so much to talk about that I think we had to tease out one thing that we could focus on because we could talk for, I mean, we did when we were working on The Big Book of Bread. We talked for years, actually years.

Actual years of our life were spent thinking and talking about both how to start, maintain, troubleshoot with sourdough culture, but then the beautiful things that you could bake with it. So we had to just like bite off a small piece of the apple here.