The answer is, exactly and inarguably, this: it’s a recipe for usefulness.
Almost everyone has been neutered of what they thought was their purpose. Stripped of our social lives, plucked from the world, and nestled into our apartments like smooshy babies. We’ve approached a case of emergency, so we’re breaking the glass and opening up our end-of times recipe book. There is only one recipe: bread. Sourdough, if we’re full-Mad Maxing it.
Sifting makes us feel sorted, kneading makes us feel needed. We imagine our families in bunkers, with post-war soot on our faces and soiled hats on our heads. (As we—I—have a car and a home and enough toilet paper to wipe my spoiled bum—don’t be dramatic.) Bread is elemental, the crusty cuts on our gums are prehistoric. It returns us to our mastery of the earth. “Agrarian” is a word that rolls from the space between our tongues and the tops of our mouths.
As we sit in front of the oven, gazing at the dough like a rising sun, we ponder the Big Questions: Who invented flour? Was it a stroke of genius or fortune or sloppiness that gave life to yeast? And HOW did SOMEone decide to BAKE a LOAF of this concoction? Did it all just go bad and sit out in the sun one day? Are we all going to go bad before we can sit together in the sun one day?
When the timer rings, open the oven to a melting aroma; you’ll want margarine and raspberry preserves. You’ll want to curl up into a loaf of your own, warm and weepy and new again.
Go check on the yeasty beasty that’s brewing in your kitchen. Place your face real close to the tiny bubbles, perhaps the only real signs of life you’ve seen in weeks, and whisper in your best Palpatine voice: RIIIIISE.
Next Steps: Drink a glass of water, smell your sourdough starter (you monster), and bake some extra bread to leave on your neighbor’s doorstep.
Why is everyone baking bread?