It began, as domestic tragedies so often do, with pride, neglect, and a misplaced faith in microbial immortality. My sourdough starter – part self-made, part descended from a venerable Cumbrian strain said to date back to the reign of George V – had endured every indignity I’d ever inflicted on it. It had survived missed feedings, fluctuating temperatures, and the odd experiment that looked more like witchcraft than baking. But one autumn, I forgot it entirely. When I finally opened the jar, it resembled an archaeological dig. The smell suggested advanced decomposition and mild remorse.
That same autumn, our quince tree went berserk. The lawn was strewn with golden fruit like unexploded ordnance. Hay had made jelly, chutney, and liqueur until no one could stand the sight of them. Still they fell, luminous and taunting. Somewhere I’d read that quinces are rich in wild yeasts – their waxy bloom a metropolis of Saccharomyces cerevisiae and assorted opportunists. It seemed a sign.
So, in a burst of inspiration tempered by laziness, I dropped a whole quince into the dead starter. Not sliced, not sanitised – just lowered it in, like a diver into the Mariana Trench. For a brief, shining day, it worked: bubbles rose, the surface trembled, hope returned. Then came the stench – a heady blend of cider, compost, and moral failure. The quince had summoned not yeastly salvation but bacterial anarchy: Hanseniaspora, Candida, and their lawless kin. Hay walked in, took one sniff, and declared it “biological warfare.” The compost heap took the remains, where it continues to seethe quietly under the dahlias.
Thus perished the Cumbrian line – undone by hubris and fruit.
Humbled, I sought foreign aid. On eBay I found a Latvian woman selling “authentic Baltic rye starter,” a culture said to survive any winter. It arrived in a small pot, dark, viscous, and faintly ecclesiastical in scent – somewhere between monastery beer and holy water gone rogue. Within hours it was alive, fizzing with Baltic discipline. I named her Baba Riga.
Her loaves were magnificent: dense, aromatic, faintly sour, and profoundly European. A new strain had risen – an EU starter, tolerant, vigorous, and entirely unimpressed by my earlier isolationism. A talisman against Reform voters, a bit like garlic.
Determined never to repeat my sin of neglect, I turned preservationist. Three small tubs of Baba Riga now lie in the freezer, each containing a spoonful of dormant civilisation. Freezing doesn’t kill yeast; it simply suspends it. The cells fold in on themselves like monks in contemplation, waiting for the warmth to return. The Lactobacillus strains – unflappable little philosophers – can survive decades of such stillness, dreaming only of rye.
Then I made the dried edition. A thin film of starter spread on a silicone mat and left to bask on the underfloor heating at a steady 28 degrees – the microbial Riviera. Once brittle, I broke it into flakes and sealed them in an airtight bag. Dehydrated and frozen, it could outlast Parliament.
So now, in Old Sodbury, my kitchen houses a quiet miracle of European cooperation: Baba Riga, risen from the East, holding the line against entropy and xenophobia alike. Should civilisation collapse under its own slogans, I’ll still have bread – risen anew, fragrant with reason, and entirely untroubled by Reform.
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