Who Is Mistress Dough?

My great grandmother was many things to many people: beloved school teacher by day …  and keeper of the best sourdough starter in all of San Francisco. I have been baking with this starter since it was given to me on my wedding day, a family tradition which I have carried on with my own daughter.

In 1877 my great grandmother ventured forth from San Francisco to become one of the early schoolhouse mistresses in the town of Mendocino, on the California coast. Her mother, (my great great grandmother) who worked at the famed Parisian Bakery, pushed a small jar of sourdough starter she had stolen from the bakery into her basket and tearfully bade her only daughter goodbye. But hard times were ahead, as Mendocino was a remote lumber town filled with men and women struggling to seek their fortunes.

Many Mendocino residents didn’t know how to read or write home to their loved ones, some as far away as Scandinavia, England and the East Coast. My great grandmother would often write letters for them, including the women who were “mistresses of the night” while offering tea and a slice of her now famous sourdough bread. The Victorians believed the worst thing that could happen to someone was to die alone and be forgotten. When you bake with her sourdough starter, you bring the loving memory of my great grandmother into your home, and she will never be forgotten.