Is it just ME?

Or are you sick of sourdough too?

THERE’S so much to organise before a holiday that it can feel not worth the hassle. You need someone to feed the cat, you must cancel the papers . . . and, of course, there’s the sourdough sitter.

Oh, you don’t have one on speed dial? Darling, in the world of artisan bread that would make you something of an outcast. Thankfully, in the normal world, it makes you, well, normal.

You can’t have failed to notice how ridiculously pretentious bread has become. In some circles, admitting you have a soft spot for sliced white will provoke the same reaction had you just confessed to loving the occasional bit of cocaine.

Most revered of all breads is the sourdough, selling for up to £6 a loaf. Grown women will fight over the last one in the supermarket, your avocado will be served on it in a trendy cafe and it has even found its way into pizza bases. Waitrose reports sourdough sales are up a third in the past year.

Due to the long fermenting process, sourdough is said

Going on holiday? Don’t forget to book a sitter for your sourdough!

to be easier to digest and is naturally low in gluten, making it popular with clean-eating millennials.

It has three ingredients: flour, salt and water. If you bake it at home, it is made over days, or even weeks. As yeast is not used, the dough must be nurtured, fed and watered like a prize orchid.

It’s for this reason that home bakers either source sitters or, as they do in Sweden, check their bucket of gloop into a ‘sourdough hotel’ where trained staff attend to its every need.

Sourdough ‘starters’ (the culture needed to start a loaf) change hands for up to £50, with recipes passed down through generations.

Call me a philistine, but I don’t want to spend more on a loaf than I do on a lipstick. And no one can convince me that the world’s best sandwich — cheese and pickle — should be made using anything other than ordinary sliced white.