Photography by Marie Viljoen except where noted.
Not many baking books include a primer on botanical Latin. Opulent double-page spreads of fruit and flowers introduce each seasonal section and most recipes include produce that reflects intensely the time of year.
One of Sarah’s happiest memories from growing up in Clinton, Tennessee, is of following the tractor on her parents’ land when it was time to dig potatoes. Covered in mud, she collected the spuds, and was thrilled to bits.
Photograph by Ngoc Minh Ngo courtesy of Roost Books.
Lately, it is sourdough sticking to Sarah’s hands (though mud still gets a look-in).
In Sourdough parallels are drawn between the author’s experience as the steward of the Cranford Rose Garden at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, and her foray into the world of sourdough bacteria, which was spurred by her years of suffering from gastrointestinal distress.
She started work at the BBG in 2009, fresh from the New York Botanic Garden’s Horticulture program, at a time when rose rosette disease, caused by a mite, was decimating the roses.
In the plague’s wake, the newly minted rosarian had to re-envision what was essentially a rose monoculture susceptible to pests, to create diverse borders of perennials and annuals as a rich companion playground for beneficial bugs.
Creating a balanced environment where insects have cover and food (not provided by roses alone) encourages them to stay, complete their life cycles and begin new ones.
Predator wasps, lady bugs, lace wings, and aphid mummifiers are among the desirable visitors which combat pests, while the added flowers are a boon to local bees.
After Sarah realized that she did not want to rely on pharmaceuticals to manage her relentless stomach troubles, a journey of discovery began, informed by her realization that introducing a fermented food like sourdough bread to her diet relieved her discomfort.
Fortunately for us these microbes are invisible, or we’d head for the hills.
In the pages of Sourdough we find no critters, but rich images for recipes as distinct as Chocolate Chipotle Kumquat Cake, Fiddlehead Pizza (there are sidebars about foraged ingredients and edible weeds), Savory Kale Scones, Parsley and Herb Donuts, Beet Bread and Sarah’s Momma’s Buttermilk Biscuits.
Photograph by Ngoc Minh Ngo courtesy of Roost Books.
For home bakers new to the sourdough experience, there are trauma-free ways to ease into the process.
Sourdough‘s pages move from a moody fall to a bright spring, from dark to light, with austerely gorgeous photos by Ngoc Minh Ngo, who, Sarah says, “has a very detailed eye that is sensitive to the slightest nuance of color.” It shows: her full-page compositions are deceptively simple, but exquisite, with scrupulous attention to how light falls on her subject.
Photograph by Ngoc Minh Ngo courtesy of Roost Books.
Elaborating on her process, Ngoc explained, “I wanted the images to reflect the fact that this food comes from Sarah, who is a gardener before she became a baker, so there is an appreciation of natural ingredients first and foremost.”
Building good sourdough is like building a good garden. Both are seasonal, both are affected by the weather, both lie fallow, and come to life when fed.