Keeping your sourdough starter alive seems to be the thing that takes new sourdough bakers the longest to master. There's a good reason for that - I think it takes people a while to grasp the fact that sourdough starter is actually alive, not just flour and water. As such, it has its own rhythms and requirements, and it doesn't always conform to our own.

An area of interest for lots of us has been discovering what a starter likes to eat. Like all creative types, home bakers are, if anything, keen experimenters. I get some great stories about what works, and why, so I'd like to share some of them now.