Life under coronavirus lockdown has people baking bread

Everyone is coping in their own way with coronavirus lockdowns around the world. Some are setting up home gyms or turning to board games to pass the time. Others are brushing up on their baking skills and have begun making bread while in quarantine. Sourdoughs seem to be particularly popular among the new bakers.

One user’s tweet thread demonstrates how to make a sourdough starter and walks those wishing to try through the eight-day process.

The Washington Post reported that Emily Hoven is a graduate student at the University of Alberta in Canada who is writing her dissertation on sourdough and times of crisis, though she initially intended it to be about the climate crisis.

Starting a sourdough kit involves only two ingredients – flour and water. As common ingredients, many have what is needed already at home, and the long process could be seen as a sort of respite from daily life under lockdown.

For many locked in quarantine, baking provides a way to pass time, and for those who have been interested in baking but just couldn’t seem to find the time before, now there’s plenty of time for all the trials and tribulations baking has to offer.

Read more: Life under lockdown: Lebanese start new radio station amid coronavirus outbreak

Not everyone has been successful in their bread baking attempts.

Others who have been successful have proudly boasted of their newfound talents on social media.

For others, where some supermarket shelves are now empty, baking has become more of a necessity. The pandemic has spurred stockpiling in some countries of food and various other staples, such as toilet paper.

But as more turn to making their own bread, reports of yeast and flour shortages have begun to emerge. In the UK, France, Denmark, Germany, Italy, Spain, and the US people have stockpiled so much dry yeast it has become hard to find, Quartz reported last week.

One Twitter user had this to say on the yeast shortage, “THERE IS NEVER A SHORTAGE OF YEAST,” and provided step-by-step directions so that would-be bakers are not left yeast-less in their hour of need and probable boredom.

Others have found humor in all the bread-mania.