DCHP-1 Online

sourdough Esp. Northwest

• 1a n. fermenting dough, often a piece held over from a previous baking, used as a starter in baking bread, biscuits, etc.

  See also: sourdough starter  

  • Sourdough was a staple in the camps and cabins of prospectors and others during the gold-rush days in the Cariboo and the Klondike.

  • 1864  (1962)  Gie my respecks to ye're guid wife;
    If ever I get back to Fife,
    I'll teach her hoo to mak loaf bread,
    Wi' sour dough. . . .
  • 1900  "Boys, it would have done your hearts good to see that whole tribe fighting drunk--and all because of a glorious ferment of sugar and sour dough."
  • 1951  Dudley went on, by mixing three-fourths of the sourdough with a tablespoon of melted fat and a cup of flour into which a teaspoon of baking soda had been well stirred.
  • 1962  The grub supply was getting low as to variety . . . No sugar, baking powder, sour-dough or fruit.

• 1b n. (used attributively) made of sourdough.

  See also: sourdough bread  

  • 1938  These sour dough hot cakes, made right on top of the stove by the men of the north, have no equal anywhere.
  • 1962  As breakfasts vary with hotcakes, sourdough biscuits, muffins and toast, most of the bread is used for sandwich lunches.
  • 1966  For the adults, there was legal gambling, sourdough flapjacks and the town was awash with bottled spirits. . . .

• 2a n. Hist. sa prospector or miner who crossed the White, Chilcoot, or Dyea passes into the Yukon gold-fields before 1898, so called because his staple was sourdough bread.

  See also: sourdough bread  

  • 1899  Good judges among the sour doughs predict that the river will clear this week.
  • 1963  The narrow-gauge railway . . . follows the shore of Lake Bennett, following a path beaten so hard by the thousands of sourdoughs that the gold trail is still visible today

• 2b n. a prospector, especially an experienced one who spends a lot of time in the wilderness.

  • 1901  It means longs walks, and plenty of them; but walking has no terrors for the "sourdough" when he is only talking about it.
  • 1957  The man looked like a sourdough and was panning for gold among the gravels of Bonanza Creek whose rich finds in 1896 set off the Yukon gold rush.
  • 1963  But a rank greenhorn can have just as much fun making like a sourdough with a basic prospector's kit, a set of mineral samples and a layman's geological guide.

• 2c n. any old hand in the Yukon or the Northwest Territories; an old-timer, as opposed to a greenhorn, or cheechako.

  See also: cheechako ((n.))  

  • 1898  The usual strong expletives had been used expressive of their meeting and Mr. Chee Chaco was not looking for information from his old friend Mr. Sour Dough.
  • 1944  Trapper Top is the prototype of Canadian Sourdoughs the Northland over!
  • 1954  I was now a sourdough, according to the accepted definition, for I had watched the river freeze up in the fall and break to pieces with a grinding roar in the spring.

• 3 n. bread made with dough started with sourdough (def. la).

  See also: sourdough bread  

  • 1935  These sourdoughs are started from yeast, potato water and flour--whole wheat preferred.
  • 1958  . . . and celebrated New Years by making sourdough to eat with beans.