Sarah Bernard stepped into her parents’ kitchen last week in Houma expecting to destroy an appliance or coat the room in flour. She hadn’t planned to join a nationwide trend, but she wanted to make bread rolls for her grandmother.
“I have baked a cake from a box,” Bernard said, “and that is it.”
Earlier, Bernard and her grandmother had discussed the recent rise in popularity of homemade bread. Bernard’s grandmother grinned as she remembered when her mother baked rolls during her childhood. With her grandmother sheltered alone during the coronavirus pandemic, Bernard baked the family recipe. She wanted to give her grandmother another reason to smile.
The framed recipe for “Maw Maw’s Bread” hung on the kitchen wall. Bernard, who works at the LSU AgCenter in Baton Rouge, watched Netflix while the dough rested for two hours. Five warm rolls later emerged from the oven, their crust a light brown.
Bernard put two rolls in a paper bag and drove to her grandmother’s house. They met in the backyard, where Bernard placed the bag on a patio table, their designated spot for exchanges. Bernard’s grandmother beamed. She called her three sisters, telling them she had their mother’s bread again.
“Not being able to comfort her, not being able to give her a hug for the past couple weeks has been so, so hard because she really needs it,” Bernard said. “We just can't take that chance. Giving her this, the warmth of the bread was an exchange for the warmth of a hug.”
Confined indoors by the coronavirus shutdowns, many others have also found comfort and connection through homemade breads and pastries. People have ample time to feed sourdough starters and monitor rising dough. They share recipes, and they have joined online classes that attracted hundreds of visitors. Some people have discovered a warm loaf of bread can provide reassurance when everything around them feels chaotic and strange.
Searches for bread-related terms — including “how to make bread” and “banana bread recipe” — spiked considerably in March and early April, according to Google Trends data. Interest has declined as states approach the next phase of their stay-at-home orders, but search frequency still exceeds pre-shutdown levels.
As homemade goods filled kitchens across the country, grocers ran out of flour and dry yeast, unable to meet demand. Bellegarde Bakery in New Orleans at least tripled its direct-to-consumer sales on flour the last two months.
Kate Heller, owner of Leo’s Bread in New Orleans, couldn’t find dry yeast she needed for croissants. Heller worried she had to stop making the flaky pastries until her brother, who owns a pizzeria in Washington, D.C., shipped her enough yeast to last six months.
Heller’s sales boomed the first weeks of the stay-at-home order. She offered home deliveries, hoping to cover her rent. Heller advertised her bread on Instagram, and within an hour, she received 100 emails. She often sold out.
“People should be baking,” Heller said. “It's very therapeutic and very nice to do something and then see the results, especially when you don't feel like you have control over a lot of things.”
Online communities have formed around baking bread. Pictures of loaves fill social media feeds. Alysse Fuchs, a graduate student at Tulane, joined a seminar led by a friend in Washington, D.C. in late March. Held every Sunday, donations to the five-part series supported employees at her friend’s pizzeria. The first round of classes, which included five sessions, received 383 participants.
Fuchs learned to make sourdough bread, bagels, focaccia, pizza dough and tarts. She latched onto bagels, mystified by the process. After six tries, Fuchs reached her version of perfection last week. She packaged the bagels with homemade caramelized onion cream cheese and white fish salad. Fuchs rode her bike around New Orleans, delivering them to friends. She now bakes during online classes for school. Sesame and za’atar bagels fill her freezer.
During this period of isolation, bread-baking has become a way to pass the time. It offers a reprieve from chaos and stress, requiring a few hours spent in the kitchen focused on one task. The loaves create satisfaction.
As people hope normalcy soon returns to their lives, many amateur bakers plan to continue their newfound hobby. And even if they stop when they can leave their homes again, they now have the skill.
Bernard plans to keep baking her great-grandmother’s bread. She likes the texture, and she noticed an improvement in taste from store-bought loaves. A recipe from the Great Depression designed to cost no money, she intends to experiment on it with herbs, hoping to improve the flavor and keep a family heirloom alive. She wants to one day make it for her children.
“Now that I know I can master it,” Bernard said, “I think I would rather invest in making this recipe the best it can be.”
"bread" - Google News
May 12, 2020 at 06:00PM
https://ift.tt/3dEGe7r
Has coronavirus formed the next generation of homemade bread bakers? - The Advocate
"bread" - Google News
https://ift.tt/2pGzbrj
https://ift.tt/2Wle22m
Bagikan Berita Ini
0 Response to "Has coronavirus formed the next generation of homemade bread bakers? - The Advocate"
Post a Comment