Thursday, March 1, 2007

150+ year old sourdough starter!!!

Quoted from Boingboing:

"For the price of a stamp, Carl Griffith’s Oregon Trail will mail you a 150+-year-old sourdough starter culture that was brought west by a pioneer ancestor:

All I know is that it started west in 1847 from Missouri. I would guess with the family of Dr. John Savage as one of his daughters (my great grandmother) was the cook. It came on west and settled near Salem Or. Doc. Savage’s daughter met and married my great grand father on the trail and they had 10 children. It was passed on to me though my parents when they passed away. I am 76 years old so that was some time ago. I first learned to use the starter in a basque sheep camp when I was 10 years old as we were setting up a homestead on the Steens Mountains in southeastern Oregon. A campfire has no oven, so the bread was baked in a Dutch Oven in a hole in the ground in which we had built a fire, placed the oven, scraped in the coals from around the rim, and covered with dirt for several hours. I used it later making bread in a chuck wagon on several cattle drives - again in southeastern Oregon."
I have been wanting to get into making sourdough bread ever since I read about it in Above Rubies. AR has a FREE magazine which I highly encourage ALL mothers to subscribe to and read. We really need encouragement as mothers and this is GREAT encouragement.

I have decided that this year I am going to TRY to learn something NEW each month. The month of March I am going to learn how to cook Chinese food. I LOVE Chinese food and going out to eat is a LOT of money (especially as our family has grown). So if there is interest, I will share some recipes and what I am learning. I want it to be healthy, but I want it to taste like from the restaurant. With prayer, I can make it happen. :)

I know, sounds silly, especially with me posting about sourdough. HOWEVER, it can take up to six weeks for your starter to arrive, so I have to find SOMETHING to do for the month of March (and maybe even April) while waiting. :)

2 comments:

Heather @ Marine Corps Nomads said...

I didn't realize that Above Rubies was free. I just ordered it. Thanks!

Anonymous said...

Paula,
I have a friend who has dehydrated starter from the Oregon trail. We are supposed to get some from her and I will be happy to share :)
love,
nancy