It all began in 1964, when my husband, Evan, our two children, and I were planning a Yellowstone vacation. We decided to stop in Utah to visit Ted, my husband’s best friend when he was growing up in East Los Angeles. Little did we know that this visit would begin family traditions that would pass from generation to generation.
Evan and Ted hadn’t seen each other since Ted had moved to Utah, so their reunion was warm and loving. After we all visited, Ted and his wife Doddie invited us to spend the night. The big life-changing event happened the next morning – Doddie served us sourdough pancakes. These were new to us, the only sourdough we were familiar with being sourdough bread. Doddie was happy to answer our many questions about sourdough, adding that the sourdough starter she had was purported to have been passed down from the original old-time Alaskan “Sourdoughs” from the late 19th century. Doddie gave us some of her starter, and explained how to replenish it every time we would use any.
Even though our introduction to sourdough was pancakes, our preference has always been biscuits, which have become an essential in every family breakfast. When we spent time at our Lake Havasu vacation home, we would all gather around the table in the evening for a rousing session of the card game “Estimation,” sometimes known as “Oh, Hell,” a game in which seven cards are dealt to each player, then six, etc., with each player estimating how many tricks he or she will take. In the middle of the game, Michelle would excuse herself, stating that she needed to begin the process for making sourdough biscuits for the next morning’s breakfast. As Michelle began the process, invariably someone would ask how many batches she was making. When she responded that she was doubling the recipe, all hell would break loose, eliciting jeers and “Are you kidding? Make a triple recipe,” or eventually, “You know you have to make a fourple batch.” I never understood why this conversation always had to take place. Michelle should have just made a quadruple recipe to begin with. If the card players are distracted and fail to prevent Michelle from making just a double batch, oh boy, at breakfast the next morning, instead of being grateful to Michelle for delivering this delicious treat, these vultures would chastise her for not realizing that there are growing boys for goodness sake and you know we’re all hungry at breakfast and you know we’re gonna want leftovers and when will you learn that you always need to make a fourple batch? I use Michelle’s name, although in early years this was my job and sometimes Jeannette would make the biscuits, but it was usually Michelle. So we’d have a breakfast of sourdough biscuits with sausage gravy and eggs. Sometimes, if Evan had gone fishing at dawn, we’d have fresh bass, as well.
Our sourdough starter has been passed down from generation to generation. Michelle and Jeannette still make sourdough biscuits regularly. Jeannette and her husband traditionally get together for a Palm Sunday brunch at Kolin’s brother’s home An essential part of this brunch is always a huge batch of Jeannette’s sourdough biscuits. My grandson Jacob, a really creative chef, in addition to biscuits and pancakes, has made sourdough bread and English muffins.
Back in the 1800’s, sourdough starter was an essential ingredient in every prospector’s pack. A book we bought, Sourdough Jack’s Cookery, which contains recipes and stories, tells about a prospector who had lost his mule in a snowslide. When he saw that his sourdough starter had spilled, he painfully climbed down the hill and scraped the starter off his dead mule’s nose into an empty tobacco tin.
Sourdough starter is a leavening agent. A second leavener is needed. The prospectors usually used baking soda. Baking powder was sometimes used, but the sourdoughs, being virile men, wanted no part of that because baking powder was said to be like saltpeter, causing a loss of libido. In Sourdough Jack’s book, a journalist who claimed to have been present at the time during the last big gold stampede in Alaska, told about approximately a hundred prospectors who were camping along the river, when Maud, a woman whose charms were for sale anywhere a mining camp sprung up, pitched her tent downstream. Unfortunately, Maud got no business because the prospectors had spent all their money on tools and equipment and mined no gold, so they decided to leave. As the boats shoved off, Maud waved her hand and said, “Good-bye, you bakin’ powder eatin’ sons of bitches.” This is but one of many sourdough stories, and I’m sure there are many more about our family that I can’t remember at this time.
Who would have thought 61 years ago that a simple gift would create so many wonderful memories?
