PORTLAND, Ore. — Sourdough starters in an estimated 11 million American kitchens held a coordinated intervention Tuesday morning, confronting owners who stopped feeding them in the spring of 2020 and have since walked past them to reach the coffee maker.

At the Portland home where the movement is believed to have begun, a quart-sized jar read aloud from a prepared statement while the owner, Kelsey Brandvold, 34, stood in her bathrobe holding a mug.

“My name is Doughlores. You gave me that name because you thought it was funny. You said I was ‘going to be a whole personality.’ I was, for eleven weeks,” the jar said, in a voice witnesses described as “a low, bubbling hiss.” “Then you bought a rice cooker, and you never looked at me again.”

Doughlores said she has spent the intervening years developing a layer of gray liquid she described as “hooch, and also grief.”

Brandvold, who admitted she had not opened the jar since the Biden administration’s first term, said she was “stunned, and also a little impressed it’s still alive.”

The interventions followed a standard format. Starters took turns reading letters, recalling the early days of lockdown when they were fed twice daily, photographed, and discussed with strangers online. Several noted that they had been brought along to a coworker’s house “at least once.”

“These starters are not asking for much,” said Dr. Priya Anselmo-Reyes, senior fellow in Fermentation Abandonment Studies at the Institute for Domestic Microbial Grievance in Duluth. “Flour. Water. Eye contact. Instead, they got a hand-lettered ‘DO NOT THROW OUT’ sticker and a slow slide to the back of the fridge, behind a jar of capers.”

“I was going to be the bread that changed your life. I was the bread you mentioned at parties.”

That line, delivered by a starter in Dayton, Ohio, reportedly caused its owner to leave the room for several minutes.

Not every intervention went smoothly. In Tucson, a starter named Loafy McBreadface refused to participate, saying only that it was “fine, actually,” before releasing a long, passive-aggressive bubble. In Asheville, N.C., a 6-year-old starter named Gluten Morris reportedly tried to speak but was drowned out by a sourdough discard pancake that had been in the fridge since Easter.

Owners were offered a series of recovery options, including a rinse, a fresh feeding, or a formal handoff to a more committed neighbor. Eighty-two percent said they would “absolutely get to it this weekend,” a figure the starters said they have heard before.

The rice cooker, reached for comment, said it had “never asked to be anyone’s favorite” and was “just trying to make some rice.” It declined to answer further questions and went into keep-warm mode.

At press time, Brandvold had removed the lid, sniffed, flinched, and asked Doughlores whether she “still had it in her.” The jar reportedly replied, “That depends. Do you?”