Mary Buckingham shares, “There’s a long-standing pioneer tradition, tracing back to the early days of settling the American West, where people freely shared bread starter with those who asked.”
Things were going smoothly until the arrival of TikTok.
Mr. Buckingham, a retired meteorologist from Greeley, Colorado, along with a small group of bread enthusiasts, have been sending out sourdough starter samples to individuals who send stamped envelopes for baking their own bread. As a demonstration of that generous tradition, we are offering you free shipping.
But this isn’t just any ordinary starter. The natural yeast and bacteria cultures in this mixture have been carefully nurtured and kept alive since 1847 when a pioneer family travelled from Missouri to Oregon in a covered wagon and settled there. The tradition has been handed down through generations.
For years, the 1847 Oregon Trail Sourdough Starter was known only to a select few.until Viral TikTok videos changed everything after an article posted last month.
“It’s absolutely crazy,” Buckingham remarked. While they used to receive 30 to 60 requests per week for samples, this year they have already received 7,000. They are struggling to keep up. I enlisted my sister’s help for this task, but it’s just the two of us handling it.
She used to dedicate two to three hours a week to respond to requests, but no more. “I’m now spending all day, every day, every weekend, eight to 10 hours a day,” she said. “It’s really overwhelming. I haven’t taken a day off since this began.”
Sourdough, a naturally fermented mix of flour and water, has been used for centuries to make leavened bread before commercial yeast was introduced. While highly valued by many bread makers, careful upkeep is required to sustain the culture, which can potentially live indefinitely.
The origin of the 1847 starter can be traced back to Carl Griffith. Born in 1919, an Oregon attorney and U.S. Air Force veteran from World War II, he had been baking bread from the same sourdough batch since he was 10 years old. He later documentedthat his family inherited it from his great-grandfather’s family, Dr. John Savage, who settled in the western part of the state in 1847.
“We’re unsure where or when it originally originated from in the wild, as commercial bread starters weren’t available back then, but we’ve encountered many wild yeasts since then. Personally, I love it,” he noted.
Griffith gladly shared dried samples of his dough with anyone who asked, connecting with an online community of sourdough enthusiasts in the early days of the internet. When he passed away in 2000, his widow and the others decided to continue the tradition.
Although most members never met Griffith, they referred to themselves as “Carl’s Friends.”
“It was a good start, and the founders thought, ‘It’d be a shame to let this disappear.’ So, we established a small society,” Buckingham explained.
While she typically handles request sorting, another member in WA nurtures and dries the starter. Given the number of people who forget to include stamps, it’s more work than expected. With the surge in demand, “It has to diminish quickly,” meaning she’ll also jump in.
After expanding enough to cover eight Swiss rolls cans thinly, “the dough is tacky and stretchy, making it hard to fit into the cans,” then left in a warm and dry area. After two to four days, the mix is blended, tested, portioned into small bags, and packed into the incoming envelopes by the thousands.
“A robust, enduring, palatable, consistent starter is highly prized and always has been,” shared Mr. Buckingham, a bread baker since the 1960s when his mother showed him at age 11. Carl’s starter is “a solid, robust starter” that ferments beautifully without yeast.
Has it genuinely lived for 177 years? While it’s impossible to confirm, Buckingham remarks, “That’s how bread was made in the old days.”
Why does she continue despite the time commitment? “I think it’s a kind of passion. It’s heartening to see so many young people taking an interest in it. I hope they carry it forward.”
Sourdough is “like a little pet that you have to feed and keep alive. And if you don’t, it will perish. After a while, you might feel, ‘Oh, that’s too much work. It’s easier to buy bread locally.'”
Source: www.theguardian.com
