Breaking Bread to Build Community

Last weekend I taught a “Sourdough 101” class at my friend’s shop, Six Creeks Mercantile in Glenns Ferry – an endeavor to bring her farmer-husband’s organic food to the small town that sprang up generations ago during southern Idaho’s agricultural boom. Over time, sugar beet farms expanded, and the commodity market thrived, while residents spent their time and dollars in bigger cities, shopping for mass-produced, convenience foods in a system they helped create. The town center dried up – no place to buy local melons, milk, eggs. With little to draw people in, the community shriveled under the hardly-fertile cropland encircling town.

We’ve heard this story about rural America before: akin to the depleted soil where plants struggle to grow, locals will need to regenerate the diversity of its ecosystem for their towns to thrive. Without culture to root residents or quality goods to attract visitors, we drive right by these quiet off-interstate ag-settlements. 

So, when Colleen asking me to help cultivate her mission to help rebuild community through food access and education, it was an easy YES! In my class, “Getting Started with Sourdough,” the goal was more than “how to” ferment – it was about developing culture. With a group of 13 women from a wide range of backgrounds, I kept “foodie” talk to a minimum and, instead, demonstrated the connection between the quality of ingredients, environmental factors, and intention, each affecting bread (and nature, human wellbeing, communities).

For two hours, we moved through the phases of sourdough cultivation – feeding the starter, mixing the leaven into dough, promoting the dough, rising, and resting, baking the loaves. Beyond measuring, mixing, and folding we enriched our senses by assessing water temperatures, dough textures, Dutch oven material. We discussed how spelt, whole wheat, or semolina flour – plus salt and added ingredients – change the dough, nutrient density, and flavor. But something more complex was developing: openness, curiosity, conversation, appreciation, trust.

At home, the multi-step process of sourdough baking always presents the opportunity to tune in. Am I baking for pizza night with my kids, sharing with a friend, or thanking my neighbors? It also helps me release life circumstances to simply create something rife with sensory pleasures – crackling crust juxtaposed with porous interior; coriander and fennel combined with orange zest and golden raisins; an invitation to tear off a piece of warm bread to smear with homemade, plum preserves. In tandem, I remain resourceful and attuned to my values, prioritizing the best quality flour grown and milled at Hillside Grain in Picabo by my friend and local farmer, Brett, with beliefs aligning with mine, plus integrity, grit, and consciousness.

In the class, I hoped to cultivate similar sentiments. We shared our individual sourdough (and life) considerations and created new visions for our experiences to ripen. Inquiries arose about health (sourdough and blood sugar), environment and politics (organic versus conventional), and public concerns (filtered versus city water). As I removed our piping hot loaf from the commercial oven and the Dutchie, we remained circled up in the kitchen discussing America’s bland, “all-purpose” flour compared with European varieties, textures, aromas, flavors, pesticides, effects on gut health. I shared my passion for sourcing local, uncontaminated food. Collectively, we decided that besides supporting Idaho farmers, experiencing regional terroir, and consuming foods as close to their natural state as possible, a top priority is farmer and farmworker welfare.

Then, we broke bread together.