This Food Artist Is Sending Sourdough Starter to People Around the World

Online, it seems that everyone is baking bread. That assumption may not be far off: according to Google Trends, searches for “bread recipes” are at an all-time high. Some simply want a new stay-at-home hobby. Some do it as a necessity, when limiting trips to the supermarket is of the utmost medical importance. Others do so because food, and creating something with your own two hands, can be healing. As the Don Quixote quote goes, “all sorrows are less with bread.”

So perhaps it’s no surprise that when Lexie Smith, founder of the food-based art project, Bread on Earth, offered to send free sourdough starters to anyone who wanted them, she received over 700 requests. Sourdough does not require instant yeast, making it one of the oldest bread types—and most accessible for home bakers. “It was important for me to realize that we can share good things as well as scary things right now. This seemed like a really straightforward way of doing it,” Smith says.

It also spurred a new project: an eventual map of sorts, to track the jars as they traveled to communities around the world, and how they exponentially spread once they got there. (Sourdough starters can be easily shared with friends, family and neighbors.)

From a farm in upstate New York, Smith talks to Vogue about how she got the idea, where the orders have gone so far, and how people are using bread as therapy during times of crisis.

Tell me how you came up with this idea to. . . well, essentially send bread.

So I'm sending them active sourdough starter that I dehydrated. They will receive a portion of that and then instructions for how to reactivate it, rejuvenate it, bring it back to life—then make bread with it themselves.

Ever since this crisis has befallen us all bread has become, as in other times of crisis, this urgent need that is being felt by people everywhere—generally speaking, communities that are pretty precarious and don't have a lot of access to fresh food rely heavily on grain staples. In the Western world—especially in the U.S. and its coastal cities like New York and LA—bread had fallen out of fashion. But it’s a really stark contrast to see this huge uptick in baking ever since resources have suddenly become more scarce. Bakeries are closing. Flour is harder to find. It really called to mind for me how reliant we are on commodity staples to make this item that is so integral to both our cultures and our diets.

Endowing people with sourdough starter is endowing them with the ability to feed themselves. It doesn't require any commercial methods of leavening.

You’ve received 700 requests. How many starters have you sent out?

As of now I believe I have sent out officially...I have a bunch of envelopes that are labeled and stamped and awaiting the post office, so I'm going to count those.

I'll allow it!

Thank you! You're also the first person I've talked to in two weeks who's not my boyfriend, and I’m sitting outside for the first time in awhile, so sorry if I seem distracted.

I feel you there.

Okay! So I’ve sent out 430. I’m going to map all of them, because they keep living wherever they are. Then, ostensibly, when their receivers become comfortable with them, they can share them with others and it just spreads like wildfire.

That’s a metaphor that we've heard a lot used for—well, something else recently. It's nice to think of it being used to make really healthful, delicious, comforting bread instead. After all, many people have started making bread as a mode of therapy and to feel connected to the present moment.

Where have some of the orders gone?

All over the U.S., Singapore, India, Bulgaria, Australia, New Zealand, Italy, Paris, London, Switzerland, Sweden, Denmark, Spain, Mexico, Hawaii...that's the U.S., but we had to put an extra stamp on there, so it feels worth noting. Canada.

What comes in the package other than the starter?

I’m sending a booklet with an illustration that I made of a feeding cycle—when you feed a sourdough starter with flour and water it keeps it alive, active, and happy. It has instructions for how to reactivate it from the dried state and then how to maintain it once it's active.

There’s also a welcoming note that explains what sourdough is and where this particular starter is coming from—so it says it's from New York state, it's been fed with regional rye, whole wheat flour, and well-water. It also asks that if they share it, they consider letting us know so that we can continue to map it.

It sounds like you are putting a lot of time into this.

Yes, it's been the last two weeks straight. I'm exhausted, but then I'm like—wait. Everyone else in the world is too. It feels like a total gift to me though.

So what's your goal for this whole thing?

To help as many people as I can learn how to bake bread or be able to bake bread. I didn’t imagine this project would become basically this full-time gig when I made this quick easy suggestion on my Instagram. But really it does fit in line with my larger ambitions of just encouraging the awareness of how vital it is to value our niche food systems, and also to consider how estranged we are from the process of making and feeding ourselves.

Do I even want to know what your kitchen looks like right now?

There's a lot of envelopes and like parchment pieces full of sourdough dust everywhere.

The last three days have been a huge push in getting a ton of stuff out. Next I'm hoping to get a bunch of beginner recipes on the site and a real thorough overview on bread terminology and lingo.

I really want people to feel like they can do this because it can be a kind of intimidating process and these people are amazing. They're so enthusiastic, they're so excited. These emails I've gotten have literally made me cry.

What’s an email that made you cry?

“This is the only thing that's given me hope." Or—"A week ago, I lost my job and I need to feed my family. Now I feel like I can." Accounts of people who lost everything in an instant. A lot of gratitude for generosity.

People are finding hope and value in this process. It's all very personal to each person. I’m just here to hand them some sourdough.

Originally Appeared on Vogue