Sourdough is Silicon Valley’s latest craze – could I beat the coders and bake the perfect loaf? — theguardian.com

When in January the New Yorker declared a comeback for bread, it was greeted as the giddy limit of fake trendspotting. “Phew,” said the world. “Thank God. I haven’t eaten bread in decades. I’ve been waiting for this moment all my life.” But there was a bead of truth; starting in Silicon Valley and radiating outwards, a little bit like – what’s that thing? Oh yes, the internet – sourdough had carved the most amazing space for itself in the culture. Proper coders’ brains were lavishing their downtime on finding ways to track the fermentation of their starter culture and then make graphs about it. Instagram is laden with tender crumb shots (it is what it sounds like), people couldn’t delight more in the miracles of this alchemy than if it were neolithic times and bread had only just been invented.

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