In the early years of mining mayhem, bakers in San Francisco were perplexed. After biting into their newly baked bread, they found that recipes they had been making in the France had turned sour. Yet, they realized that they liked how the bread tasted – they had struck culinary gold of sorts. Thus, the name of the bread became sourdough.

Bread was so important to the miners that on cold nights they would cuddle with their yeast starter to keep it warm – so it wouldn’t die. These intelligent miners became known as “sourdoughs.”