By Jane Valencia
Whether purchased, gifted, or “caught” with flour and water, a well-tended sourdough starter burgeons with life. A keeper of sourdough often gets into a creative rhythm with using it, making breads for family and friends, and even distributing the starter itself. In times past, this culture of sharing sourdough had stronger significance – that of maintaining survival – and was not just passed along but handed down.
Literally “all in the family,” Caelan Angel’s sourdough starter has been in his for at least five generations.
“My grandmother’s grandma was the first person that I know had it. It might go back further than that, but that’s what I’ve heard. It’s been passed down through the generations and distributed to all the different family units, and so we all have pieces of it that we care for. And if one of ours dies, we just get a little bit and revive it.”
Caelan’s family is strongly connected, meeting up during the holidays and other family events. Caelan finds that the sourdough they share is a material expression of this relational connection. “This shows up during the holidays as sourdough bread that’s baked from this family sourdough. It also serves as a kind of check-in point, ‘how’s your sourdough going?’”
Caelan feeds his sourdough every Sunday. “I’ve definitely killed the dough a couple of times.”
His young son loves pancakes made with the sourdough, so will check in about it, “Is it time to feed the dough yet?”
This simple home tradition of making delicious pancakes is a rhythmic touchpoint of connection between the two of them, as well as to their extended family and with the sourdough itself.
Caelan notes that tending and sharing sourdough, and passing it down, was a common practice during earlier times. His dad’s family was part of that. “That whole side of the family are great cooks, and traditional family meals are really important.”
And for him, this connection extends to ancestral heritage in very physical ways.
“More and more science is coming out about how much our gut runs who we are – how we think, how we’re feeling, our health, our pheromones, and communication with other people, and also how much the gut shapes our own bodies. You are what you eat.
“And so to have this relationship with the same culture that has evolved with our family and we’ve evolved with them through time feels like a really tangible connection to this lineage of my DNA and who I am.”
For many these days, practices that tether families and community and their food sources are absent.
“A lot of those things like backyard gardens that have been staples of life for so long have largely gone extinct – they’re not a common practice anymore. Also, with how easy it is to move, family structures have gotten more dispersed. You don’t need to have your family around for survival.
“There’s also been a breakdown of family units for many reasons, and a lot of those traditions that were staples of just making it through the year and measuring the year – all of these have faded.
“I believe we have been experiencing a mass sterilization and homogenization of culture for a long time. Modern agricultural and food practices, social media, cities designed around cars, the eradication of third spaces, and increased violence against marginalized populations are a few symptoms.
“It’s hard enough to maintain my sourdough culture, let alone the few cultural pillars – family gatherings, seasonal celebrations, etcetera – I still have. Creating new and remembering old practices can feel especially daunting. But I believe this generational sourdough culture provides a model we may extrapolate on to try and enrich our lives and our communities.”
Caelan describes this model.
“A sourdough starter is a wild culture that arises from the natural wild yeasts and amino acid bacterias, rather than the monoculture strains of yeast in bakers yeast. All you need to start one is unbleached flour and water, tended over a week or two. But to maintain a culture requires time and attention. I have killed mine many times over. Yet, through a decentralized network (my family) we have managed to maintain this community of micro-organisms through many generations.
“We as humans yearn for connection, we yearn to support each other. It is because of the social and economic structures we live in that it has become so difficult to maintain traditions that enliven our life and bring us deeper into community. I believe that like a sourdough starter, if given the simple raw ingredients, culture arises naturally and unbidden. Maintaining it is another thing.
“What might it look like to have a community of people who support each other in material and emotional ways, so that when you stumble, have a hard week, or a family emergency, they can reach out and lift you up? Food is at the center of culture and community, a way to quite literally nourish and bring people together. How can we create a web of resiliency that weaves us closer together with our community?”
Caelan dreams of finding those people in his community who have interests and skills in relation to food, each contributing their specialty, what they love to work with.
“For me it might be sourdough, making bread, biscuits or even just giving it to a number of folks, ‘Here’s a sourdough starter,’ and building these tethers of community and dependence on your other community members.
“Someone might contribute yogurt, another greens and veggies. I can’t do it all, but this is something I can do and am excited about, and so I’ll do this and give it to my community, and I trust that others will do the same to their capacity. I think that that’s one of the ways that we can re-enrich community.”
I had suspected that when I approached Caelan regarding generational sourdough he would have much more to share in relation to it. When I mentioned this, he laughed.
“Sometimes I can kind of roll my eyes at myself because I do that in other situations, and people are like, ‘Okay, but we’re talking about sourdough.’
“No, It’s about changing the paradigm.
“And it makes it a lot more possible, too, because if I’m making bread, making yogurt, growing a garden – all of these have so much effort that goes into starting them, but producing more isn’t that much more work.
“Okay, I have to knead more dough, set more dough out to rise, and work with longer baking times. But that is a vast difference in labor than maintaining all the other food-ways that I want me and my child to have in our lives.
“And so, let’s be smart about how we do this. And I think that creating food and giving services to your community is one of those ways of spreading the load and spreading the love.”
And to inspire and nourish the culture for doing so.
For details on how to start your own sourdough, visit vashonloop.com and read “Fresh – Yet Ancient – Bread” by Andy Valencia, published March 2026
Sourdough Pancake Recipe
Caelan describes his method of making sourdough pancakes, which does not use exact measurements.
“The night before making pancakes, I beef up the starter with about two and a half cups of flour and two cups of water, and then let it do its business overnight.
“In the morning, we’ll take a half cup out to return to the fridge as your starter. Mix that with some baking soda, some sugar – a tablespoon to taste, some oil, a pinch of salt, a little more flour – generally about a half cup to a cup – to get to the consistency I want.
“Heat your skillet on medium until butter sizzles. Add ¼ cup of batter to the skillet, flipping when bubbles show through the batter and pop. Enjoy with butter, syrup, fresh fruit, or whatever toppings you desire!
With two eggs: “I separate egg whites from the yokes. I beat up the egg whites and get them nice and fluffy, and combine all the ingredients. They’re really good. I like them because they got a little bit of that sour taste to them. Serve them with fresh fruit, or whatever you like.”
