Sourdough Starter Wins Third Term

A jar of grey sourdough starter has blocked the switch to synthetic food at Lantern Reach for the third generation running, an Aftertimes review of city kitchen records shows. On the upper deck it is known as the Heirloom. It has never cast a vote.

It does not need to. Solveig Valdivia, the city's chief of food supply, said the culture is invited to roughly nine hundred dinners a year. The average council member has eaten its bread 212 times since taking office. Engineers who propose a change are served a loaf, then asked about their mothers.

The last three feasibility studies each recommended synthetic food. Each was shelved after a supper.

Uzma Toivonen, a retired baker who tends the culture, agreed to talk only in the doorway of her pantry. "It's fed twice a day," she said. "Which is more than the council can say for the engineers." Asked whether it had ever been told about the studies, she closed the door.

The cost is physical. The Heirloom needs flour grown in the lower farm ring, which gives up about four percent of its air scrubbers each year to keep the wheat alive. Danuta Sandoval, an engineer, calls the figure "survivable, for now."

The council's spokesperson denied any link between dinners and decisions. "The bread has no influence," he said, by message. The message arrived with a photo of his plate, and a request for the recipe.