Mary Buckingham says, “There’s an old pioneer tradition, dating back to the early days of colonization of the American West, of giving bread starter to anyone who asked.”
That was all going well until TikTok came along.
For decades, Mr. Buckingham, a retired meteorologist in Greeley, Colorado, and his small community of bread enthusiasts have been offering samples of sourdough starter to people who send them stamped addressed envelopes to use when baking their own bread. We have demonstrated that generous tradition by mailing you free shipping.
However, this isn’t just any old starter. The natural yeast and bacteria cultures in this mixture have been lovingly nourished and kept alive since 1847, when a pioneer family drove west from Missouri in a covered wagon and settled in Oregon. The tradition has been passed down.
For decades, the 1847 Oregon Trail Sourdough Starter was prized only by those in the know.but viral TikTok videos Everything changed with an article posted last month.
“It’s completely insane,” Buckingham said. They used to field 30 to 60 requests a week for samples, but “this year we’ve already reached 7,000. We’re just running to catch up.” I drafted my sister into the military for this purpose, but it’s just the two of us doing it.”
She used to spend two to three hours a week responding to requests, but no more. “I spend all day every day, every weekend, eight to 10 hours a day,” she says. “It’s really crazy. I haven’t had a day off since this started.”
Sourdough is a naturally fermented culture consisting of flour and water that has been used to make leavened bread for most of human history until commercial yeast was developed. Although prized by many bread makers, careful management is required to nourish and maintain the culture, which can theoretically live and grow indefinitely.
The origin of the 1847 starter is carl griffithBorn in 1919, he was an Oregon lawyer who served in the U.S. Air Force in England during World War II. He had been baking bread from the same batch of sourdough since he was 10 years old. he later wroteand his parents told him it was inherited from the family of his great-grandfather, Dr. John Savage, who came to the western part of the state in 1847.
“We don’t know when or where it was first caught from the wild, given that people at the time didn’t have commercial starters for bread, but we’ve been exposed to a lot of wild yeast since then. Personally, I like it,” he wrote. .
Griffith happily shared dried samples of his dough with anyone who asked, and in the early days of the internet, he connected with a small community of other sourdough bread makers online. After his death in 2000, with the consent of his widow, they decided to continue the tradition.
Although most had never met Griffiths, they called the group “Karl’s Friends.”
After newsletter promotion
“This was a good start, so the founders thought, ‘What a waste to let this disappear.’ So we started a small society,” says Buckingham.
She usually only manages the sorting of requests, but while another member from WA grows and dries the starter, it’s a lot more work than she expected given the number of people whose stamps aren’t included. It is the job. With demand surging, “This has to die and go down quickly” – meaning she’ll be on board too.
That is, after growing enough to spread thinly over eight cans of Swiss rolls, “the dough is sticky and stretchy, making it difficult to fit into the cans,” then leaving it in a warm room. and dry. After two to four days, the mixture is blended, tested, placed into small bags, and stuffed into the thousands of envelopes that arrive.
“A great, durable, good-tasting, consistent starter is highly valued, and always has been,” he says, and has been baking bread since the 1960s, when his mother taught him about it when he was 11 years old. says Mr. Buckingham. Carl’s starter is “a good, hardy starter” and doesn’t need yeast to ferment beautifully. ”
Has it really been alive for 177 years? Although it is impossible to verify, Buckingham points out that: This is how bread was made in the old days. ”
Why does she keep doing it when it requires so much of her time? “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 keep it up.”
Sourdough is “like a little pet, and you have to feed it and keep it alive. And if you don’t, it dies. After you’ve been doing it for a while, you’re like, ‘Oh, that’s too much trouble. It’s often easier to buy local bread.”
