When baker Zahir Mohamed arrived in Hong Kong, all he had was a jar of sourdough starter
- Mohamed came to Hong Kong in 2017 after his business in South Africa was sabotaged
- ‘Hong Kong’s climate is possibly the best for making sourdough. You just open the window and your dough expands’
Why did you decide to move to Hong Kong? “I wanted a fresh start. I was running a business in Cape Town and it got sabotaged in a way because I hit a guy. South Africa is still pretty racist. It’s going to need a few generations to loosen its stance on people of colour. Baked was quite successful but it was frowned upon because I wasn’t white.”
What did you expect when you arrived in Hong Kong? “I came here not knowing anyone. All I had in my bag was my sourdough starter. I was held up in customs because they didn’t know what it was. They thought I was trying to smuggle something. With a South African passport, there’s only so many places you can go. I definitely wasn’t going to Singapore because it seemed very boring – I need a little excitement in my life. I landed and had never seen such amazing buildings.”
Your sourdough starter is 50 years old. Where did it come from? “Half of my family were bakers, the other half are miners. The sourdough starter belonged to my great-grandmother. Six generations of my family have been involved in bread. We’re from Egypt originally. Bread is like second nature to me and I grew up with it. Hospitality is in our blood.”
Some bakers say it’s difficult to make bread in Hong Kong’s humidity. How do you cope? “Actually, I discovered Hong Kong’s climate is possibly the best for making sourdough, because it is humid as hell. Bakers need a temperature-controlled box called a proofer to help the dough expand. In Hong Kong, you don’t need that. You just open the window and your dough expands. The bacteria in the air is good for the bread. It creates a good culture and it’s good for your body and digestion.”
What else is crucial to your breadmaking process? “Also important is the grain you work with. The difference between using a $10 bag of grain versus a $50 bag is massive. The way it’s milled, the extraction of the grains and fibres, they all play a huge part. I take these things seriously. Soon, I’m going to start bringing in grains from all over the world and I plan to mill them myself. This is a serious obsession for me.”