Just found out my sourdough starter is over 100 years old

Pulled the jar out of the fridge and read my grandma's note on the lid dated 1920, which blew my mind since I just thought it was some random goop I kept alive for fun, has anyone else discovered a hidden history in their own kitchen?

3 comments

3 Comments

laura_chen411mo ago

Wait, hold on - 1920?? That's actually insane to me. I would've fainted on the spot if I found that note. Like, that starter has been bubbling away through the Great Depression, world wars, man on the moon, and now it's sitting in your fridge next to leftover takeout. I keep trying to wrap my head around how many hands have touched it over the last hundred years. My mind is genuinely blown right now.

cooper.drew1mo ago

Oh man, that's wild! I had something similar happen when I was cleaning out my mom's pantry and found a jar of her old sourdough starter from the 80s. I almost tossed it but something told me to check the lid, and sure enough she had labeled it with a date and a little note about how it came from her grandmother's kitchen in 1952. It totally changed how I felt about feeding the thing every week. I actually started keeping a journal of what I baked with it because it felt like carrying on this little family tradition. Now every time I pull it out of the fridge I think about all the loaves it's helped make over the decades and what my great grandma would think of me using it for pizza dough.

shane_hayes1mo ago

The thing that gets me about cooper.drew's story is how the sourdough starter kind of becomes this living thing that connects all those different eras. But here's an angle I haven't seen anyone bring up yet, what if the starter isn't just carrying forward the same yeast and bacteria from way back when? I mean, over a century of feedings, the microbes in there are probably totally different now from what they were in the 1920s. Every time you open that jar and feed it with modern flour and water, you're introducing new wild yeast and bacteria from your own kitchen air. So maybe it's more like a family heirloom that gets passed down but also keeps changing with each generation, you know? Kind of like how recipes get tweaked over time but the tradition stays alive.