"If thou tastest a crust of bread, though tastest all the stars and all the heavens." Robert Browning
Whenever anybody takes a bite of Jeb’s sourdough bread, they ask for the recipe. Most of us have forgotten, if we ever knew, what bread is supposed to taste like - much less how to make it - but in Jeb’s bread is the very essence of the grain growing, the sun shining, and rain falling onto dark, rich earth. One hearty slice has all the texture, taste and staying power of a full meal. He uses only three simple ingredients – water, flour, and salt – but the contortions he’s gone through to master the art of sourdough bread-making amounts to nothing less than a hero’s journey, not unlike that of the starter from which it rises (no pun intended).
Affectionately referred to as “Mother,” sourdough starter is basically homegrown yeast. As with any living being, the quality of your starter – and the bread you make with it - is dependent on how you treat your Mother. (There’s a metaphor here.) Are you feeding it organic whole flour, or run-of-the-mill Robin Hood? Is your water pure? Some people even say that micro-organisms in the atomosphere affect flavor. Maybe the fresh air and spring water at South Ridge have something to do with the quality of Jeb’s sourdough, but it’s true magic stretches across the space and time continuum. Jeb’s got one foot in the past and one in the present while he’s making it; eating it provides fuel for the future.
Like heredity, the use of sourdough dates back through the generations. It is shared not only by breaking bread, but through scoops of starter which can be divided and passed along again and again. Every Mother comes with a story; take Carl Griffith’s famous strain that is said to have travelled the Oregon Trail with his forbears in the mid-1800’s. Never mind that the pedigree of any given starter has to be taken on trust; it’s enough to know that the use of sourdough dates all the way back to the pyramids. Just by using it, you’re participating in an age-old ritual connecting you to your ancestors.
Jeb’s starter is of appropriately romantic lineage, considering his former career as a Yukon sourdough dog-musher. We like to think of this venerable Grandmother being divided and shared by the light of a few dozen wood stoves, perhaps since the days of the gold rush. Maybe she arrived in the north via San Francisco, placed tenderly in the pack of some adventurer by his sweetheart, having previously travelled from the Old World across uncertain seas. My first introduction to her, and the cult of sourdough, occurred when Jeb showed up to visit me in Alberta after a long separation. Of course, his Mother came with him.
He pulled a jar of bubbly goo from his pack along with the crumbling remains of a batch of “Expedition Cake “ - a tasty sourdough concoction derived from Tim Smith’s “Woods Cook” book - which kept him going over 4000 kilometers to my door. That morning, he whipped up a batch of sourdough pancakes. I wasn’t wholly enthusiastic - to me, pancakes always seemed frankly unworthy of the calories they cost. But Jeb’s crispy, tangy rounds bore little relation to the pallid, flaccid cakes my dad used to drum up on Sundays. Combined with peanut butter, maple syrup, and my own lack of willpower – these scrumptious delights eventually resulted in an expanding waistline. You see, Jeb’s visit turned into an extended stay, and the longer he stayed, the more pancakes I ate. I finally had to protest, but he didn’t stop serving up those pancakes. He promised that if I ever made it to New Brunswick, he’d make me a nice hearty loaf of bread in his kitchen. The rule with sourdough, he explained, is like so many other things in life - “use it or lose it.”
Throughout his stay, the care and feeding of his starter was a daily concern. Requiring variable amounts of flour, water, and warmth, that jar of goo moved around my kitchen a lot – from table to counter to window to fridge - and finally found its way back to the Northern Appalachians, with me riding shotgun. I figured that any man who can keep a batch of sourdough alive after a journey across Canada in the dead of winter could probably look after me, too. As with any relationship, Jeb explained, sourdough is a matter of give and take. Your starter will always reciprocate, provided you do your part.
Once I was comfortably settled in his old hunting camp at South Ridge, Jeb rolled up his sleeves. It had been a long time since he’d made bread; living alone for so long, he had no one to bake it for. There’s more to bread than bread alone; the warm aroma that fills the room while it’s baking is the palpable essence of your effort to nourish someone.
Pulling out the old Dutch oven his mother used to use, he described coming home to that smell every day when he was growing up. “Mom used store-bought yeast, which has only been around for the last 150 years or so,” he said. “Big puffy loaves, even cinnamon buns sometimes. I was actually embarrassed by those thick home-made slices when I pulled out my sandwich for lunch at school. I used to trade them for Wonderbread.” He didn’t realize then who was getting the better part of the deal. He does now.
I asked him what the big deal is about sourdough. Why not make it easier, and just use yeast? “I used to bake with yeast all the time,” he said. “It’s a piece of cake. But sourdough has this meaty, chewy texture and taste to it, and it’s more of a challenge. It’s the bread that made the Romans strong enough to crucify Jesus, for crying out loud! It’s the bread that built Europe! People have been hung for stealing bread like this!” Half an hour later, a compact mound of dough went into that Dutch oven, and shortly thereafter, the house was filled with the scent of home.
Well, I appreciated the effort. I wasn’t sure what sourdough bread was supposed to taste like, but his first results required a tactful, if grateful, response. His loaf looked a little like a curling stone, and was about as hard. I didn’t have to say anything. Jeb-like, he didn’t give up, attempting many more loaves over the following weeks. In desperation, he occasionally resorted to adding baking soda, sugar, or yeast; he said it always felt like cheating. Some loaves turned out better than others, but because he’d abandoned the recipe, he could never remember what he did or didn’t do to make it work (or not work).
We were saved by the timely gift of a book which outlines a sourdough technique at least as ancient as the dough itself – “Sourdough: Wholesome Recipes, Organic Grains” by Casper Lugg and Ivar Hveem Fjeld. The directions outlined in these pages guaranteed success, and Jeb pored over it for hours before announcing that he needed a “proving basket,” a dough scraper, a kitchen scale, a timer, organic whole flour, and 24 hours to get it right. Since then, the tinkly chime of his timer lets me know when to stay out of the way.
There’s no one step in the alchemy of sourdough magic in which lies the secret to a perfect loaf, but attitude is a crucial component. Jeb approaches breadmaking with a reverence and dedication not unlike that of a temple acolyte. Throughout the process, many incantatory phrases are muttered, followed by mysterious, and apparently vital, rituals. First is “setting the leaven” – in other words, making sure the starter is fed to bubbly perfection. This can take anywhere from 2-8 hours. When Jeb shoves his jar under my nose, saying, “MMMM! Smell that!” I know it’s ready. It smells like beer.
Then there’s the “pinching in” – that is, blending carefully ground Himalayan salt into the dough. (“Iodized salt will kill the leaven,” he says). Three “stretching and folding” sessions, followed by prescribed periods of rest by the woodstove, are next. This is the phase where I imagine God reaching out and bringing spirit to clay; Jeb’s metaphor is more representative of his time in the military, where he trained young soldiers.
“It feels like you’re stretching the dough’s muscles, almost to the point of breaking,” he says. “When you’re folding that dough up and over itself, you’re training it to develop resiliency, to become stronger. You’re helping it to become the best version of itself.”
If all goes well, the dough develops some bulk and rises by at least a third. Using his scraper, Jeb transfers the sticky concoction to a floured surface and begins what he calls “The First Shaping” - folding the dough again and again, coaxing it to bend to his will. “You have to build that structure gently,” he says. “You can’t push - you’re trying to build those gluten bonds, not break them. If you do, you’ve ruined your product and the dough won’t be able to recover.” I think of how he nudged me eastward with those sourdough pancakes. I didn't need a lot of convincing.
After the initial shaping, both the dough and Jeb settle in for a 20 minute rest. Then comes “The Final Shaping” - more stretching and folding. Finally, he turns it over to reveal a perfectly smooth, jiggly surface. It’s ready for the oven now, right? Wrong. Basic training is over, but the dough still has to prove itself, and is then flipped into the – you guessed it - proving basket, smooth-side down.
This muslin-lined basket bowl supports the dough’s shape and allows it to breathe after the rigors Jeb has put it through. Covered with a tea towel, he places it in front of the woodstove again and rotates it every half hour to keep it warm. How long it stays there depends on how it breathes; if the air bubbles within get too big, the loaf will collapse once you put it in the oven - but if you don’t leave it long enough, your final product will be too dense. When the dough rises to roughly an inch below the edge of the basket – which can take up to three hours, give or take - Jeb puts it in the refrigerator, which retards the process and allows the dough to stiffen before it goes into the oven.
At this point, we’re ready for bed. The dough stays in the refrigerator overnight, perhaps dreaming of its final metamorphosis. Early the next morning, usually while I’m snoring, Jeb undertakes the last and trickiest part of the whole operation. One clumsy move, he says, and all your hard work can be undone.
He preheats the Dutch oven to 500 degrees in preparation for the dough, which is flipped, smooth side up, onto a small floured board. He then scores the surface with a knife at a depth of about a half centimeter, which allows the dough to expand further in the oven. Timing is crucial here, because once he’s cut the surface, without heat, the dough will start to collapse. With a deftness born of experience, Jeb lifts up the board and gently slides the dough into the smoking-hot Dutch oven. Whew.
On goes the lid, which facilitates the steam that results in that chewy, tasty crust. It also disperses the warm scent of baking throughout the house. I wake up to an empty bed, breathing it in and thanking my lucky stars that I have a husband who can be bothered to go through all that trouble. Lying there, I think of all that goes into a good loaf of sourdough bread. There are more than three ingredients, after all. There’s forethought and planning, diligence and care, deftness, patience, and determination. A good loaf of bread says a lot about its baker.
By now you’ve probably realized that it’s not so easy to just hand over a recipe to make a loaf like Jeb’s. He recommends buying the book he uses, which outlines the process in detail, as well as many other variations and recipes. He also swears by whole organic flour (he gets his from Speerville Mill), and is starting to dabble in ancient grains like buckwheat, spelt and rye. Studies show that these flours, rich in vitamins and minerals, also reduce cardiovascular risk factors, digest easily and provide better blood sugar control than ordinary white flour. We love their nutty, earthy flavor and texture, but I think Jeb just likes the idea of using ancient grains for this ancient technique even more.
“Really, it’s an act of co-creation,” Jeb says. “You’re a part of a process that consists of biology, science, history, and magic. When you cut into that loaf, there’s a lot of satisfaction in knowing that you helped make it happen.”
Sitting down the breakfast table, he serves me up a lightly toasted slice, well-slathered with peanut-butter and New Brunswick maple syrup. Never mind my expanding waistline; it’s worth it. I’ll eat every crumb, realizing that the most important ingredient in sourdough bread is love.
"SOURDOUGH: A Hero’s Journey to the Perfect Loaf" By Leslie Noel Butler, 24.03.24