Overheard a customer at the grocery store explain sourdough to his daughter

I was at the market last Saturday picking up flour when I caught this guy telling his maybe 10 year old that sourdough starter is just "old flour that grew mold and people decided to bake with it anyway." I almost choked on my coffee. He was trying to be helpful but that's about as wrong as you can get. After I finished shopping I actually walked by and politely told the kid that it's actually a living culture of yeast and bacteria that people keep active by feeding it. The dad just shrugged and said "same difference." Has anyone else run into wild misconceptions about basic baking that make you want to correct a total stranger?

2 comments

2 Comments

perez.christopher8d ago

The guy compared a years-old sourdough culture to moldy flour are you kidding me?!

oscarwright8d ago

Jeez, I mean I hate to admit it but I used to kind of think the same thing as that guy a few years back. My wife started a sourdough starter during that whole lockdown phase and I honestly thought she was just keeping a jar of moldy flour alive. But then she showed me how it actually bubbles and smells different depending on what you feed it, and I had to eat my words, @perez.christopher. It's wild how something that looks like gross paste is actually a whole ecosystem of good bacteria and yeast working together. That dad was just dead wrong calling it mold, that's like calling a yogurt "spoiled milk you ate anyway.