Paper short abstract:

This paper is based on a qualitative and visual research on the emotional connection between sourdough bakers and their sourdough. It explores how sourdough baking reflects on other values in their life and what this human-microbial relationship means to the baker's everyday life.

Paper long abstract:

People often bake sourdough for practical reasons. It's healthier than yeasted bread and it's cheaper to do it yourself. But people also bake for reasons that have nothing to do with practicality. Baking sourdough bread can f.ex. be a form of meditation. The process evokes all the bakers senses; smell, touch, sight and even hearing, when listening to the bread's cackling sound after baking. The baking process is a slow one, controlled by the microbes fermenting the dough. Accepting that the baker has little control of the speed of which the microbes work can both be the biggest challenge for the baker as well as the biggest lesson in mindfulness. People also bake for emotional reasons. A sourdough can be kept alive for a long time, for centuries even. A baker might own a sourdough that has been kept alive within his family for centuries. For many the sourdough is not simply an ingredient to bake with but something with emotional value that connects them to other people every time they attend to their sourdough or bake.

This paper, based on a qualitative and visual research on the connection between sourdough bakers and their sourdough, focuses on the emotional and physical connection bakers have with their sourdough. I will explore what sourdough baking represents to the baker, how it reflects on other values in their life and what this human-microbial relationship between the baker and the sourdough mother means to the baker in his everyday life.