We've been Hermaned...

A brand new occupant has joined the M household. He sits in the corner blowing bubbles and smelling mildly yeasty and alcholic. He came with strict instructions to give him a "plenty of room to grow" and to "feed him" when he is hungry or even really hungry. I am intrigued by him but also find the demands for food slightly creepy. I snuck down to check on him this morning and he was still bubbling away like a latent volcano, quiescent but vaguely menacing.
Yes, we've been given one of those "Herman cakes". For the uninitiated (aka me until yesterday) it is a cake based on  a sourdough recipe. You leave the mixture to ferment in a bowl, you stir it every day and add ingredients when instructed. After ten days, you split the mixture into four, bake one as a cake and give the other three away. Each of your three victims  friends repeats the mixture and before you know where you are the entire nation has a sourdough cake plus surplus mix and a mini-miracle that puts the feeding of the five thousand in the shade has been accomplished. (OK, that is an exaggeration, more likely that some of the mixture is quietly festering in the bins of the nations...)
The Herman cake seems to me like a cross between a chain letter and a tamogotchi and that is not particularly auspicious. When I was about twelve I received a  chain letter which I dutifully sent to all the required recipients on the basis that I would get about a thousand postcards back in six months - I didn't. In my twenties I once babysat a tamogotchi for a week for a friend - I forgot it for one day and it phoned social services and threatened to leave home. After a few days of TLC, I forgot again. It died.
I shall let you know how Herman gets on...