Bread rules as comfort food during a crisis
Supermarkets are short on flour due to the surge in home breadmaking
In the beginning it was toilet paper and dried pasta. Now it’s flour and yeast becoming hot items as amateur and avid bakers alike are at home developing breadmaking skills, as well as using it as a way to connect or simply a means of self-care. For all the talk about low-carb trends and diets, at the end of the day, carbs rule.
“Sourdough specifically has a mastery to it but at the same time it’s so simple because it’s just flour, the starter and water. It’s a craft, it’s a creative outlet, and a lot of us are at home, it’s a new hobby,” says Jayson Gaignard, founder of Mastermind Talks, an annual conference for entrepreneurs.
Gaignard, who lives in Kitchener, has been an avid sourdough baker over the last year and a half, having taken a course with former Café Boulud sous chef turned baking instructor Matthew James Duffy. After getting multiple requests from friends who now have the time to get into breadmaking, Gaignard created a public Facebook group called 7 Days to Sourdough, where members follow along with Gaignard making it from scratch.
“Once people get their flour and basic equipment, we’ll build a starter from scratch and every day I will have a new video to start the process. The idea is to support people in this time when they might feel alone. It’s also a bit of a distraction for me because I don’t have to think about work. Making bread forces you to be present with what’s in front of you.”
According to Google Trends, searches in Canada for sourdough spiked significantly after the first week of March and continued to climb. Even my tweet calling out for Star readers to talk about whether they’ve started making bread has turned into a thread of people sharing pictures of their creations.
“It’s a way to connect to someone outside the home. I’ll make a few loaves a day or make branches of my three-year-old sourdough starter and leave it at someone’s door, or have them pick it up outside of mine. It’s nice being able to wave hi to them, even if it’s from the other side of a window,” says Jeremy Potvin, co-founder of the Toronto-based cannabis start-up Weedbox Inc. He is also working on launching an e-commerce site called EspressoDeals.com where major food suppliers such as Sysco can sell pantry staples and other goods that would have gone to restaurants, to the public.
Potvin also used his breadmaking routine as a way to instill structure into his workfrom-home life. “Even before lockdown I would leave work to come home to shape the bread, chill it, score it every few hours,” he says. “It helps build a routine. At home, I make a goal of finishing a certain number of tasks before I do the next turn on the bread.”
For Amanda Buckiewicz, a producer at CBC Radio’s science program Quirks & Quarks, she took on making sourdough for the first time to satisfy her scientific curiosity. Not having a sourdough starter, Buckiewicz exchanged a can of White Claw for a starter from a friend, who stood three metres away and held the baggie of starter with a pair of barbecue tongs.
She also got creative in lieu of a proofing basket to give the bread an even, round shape: she put the dough in an unused, cardboard compost bin. She also didn’t have a jar for her new starter so she used a shaker cup meant for protein shakes.
“I looked into the difference between sourdough recipes and made one that took a day, and another one that took three,” says Buckiewicz, who made four loaves for the bread experiment. “There was an absolute difference; the one-day tasted like nothing whereas, as much as I begrudged spending that much time on it, the threeday Bon Appétit one was twice the size and it looked like a professional loaf.”
Baking also provided a distraction for Buckiewicz, who says since it’s her job to pay attention to the news, she needed to find a hobby that took her away from the screen. It’s therapeutic, but she’s not sure if she’ll continue with her new-found hobby once people can leave their houses again.
“My pre-isolation life is pretty active, so I don’t know if I’ll have the time to keep making sourdough after this, but I do have a new-found appreciation for how much work goes into it, so I won’t hesitate paying $6, $7, $8 for a loaf at a bakery now,” she says.
Not everyone is making sourdough, though. Food writer and creator of the Black Foodie food site Eden Hagos is at home experimenting with himbasha, an Ethiopian and Eritrean bread that is slightly sweet and typically served at celebrations such as weddings and birthdays.
“It’s like our version of dessert. You can have it with tea or breakfast, and the cool thing is that for children’s birthdays, they’ll break it over the back of a child for strength. There are pictures of me doing that as a kid,” she says from her family’s home in Windsor. “People will add raisins, my mom uses lemon zest, and I like the ones with tikur azmud (Ethiopian black cumin). I’m taking this as an opportunity being with my family to learn more about African recipes.”
As supermarkets are short on flour due to the surge in breadmaking, Hagos is also taking this as an excuse to try making himbasha with teff, the ancient grain used in injera. She had been working with a local teff company, Berhan Grains, before the lockdown and brought 15 lbs. of the grain from her apartment in Toronto to Windsor.
“Teff flour can be tricky to bake with if you don't add extra sources of moisture (like apple sauce or mashed banana to the mixture)," she says.
Even those who find themselves sensitive to gluten are finding comfort in baking. Ellen Chin says she loves to bake, but usually gives it away to friends. For the past two weeks, she’s been making pasta and sourdough from scratch, eating it in moderation with her partner while in self-isolation.
“I have to offset it with a lot more fruits and veggies, so I have to plan ahead,” says Chin, who works in communications and public relations. “I was reading forums and watching video tutorials on bread, and I’ve gone so deep into it that it’s taking over my life. Because there is no bread or pasta out there, having the skills to make it is essential.”
She shares her creations on social media, finding solace in others doing the same thing. “You’re updating your progress, you’re seeing other people just starting to bake, and you feel happy for them,” she says. “You’re getting that interaction, even if it is online. People will probably stop baking once this is all over, but it’s nice to do this now when you need an activity.” It’s about passing time, but also about self-care and being OK with having carbs as long as your body can handle it.”
“There’s a lot of uncertainty out there,” Chin says. “But when it comes to making bread, it’s the one part of my day that I know will turn out.”