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You Don't Have to Bake Your Own Bread in Quarantine

The idea that we should pick up new hobbies during a pandemic is unnecessary pressure in our already stressed-out lives.

by Bettina Makalintal
Apr 7 2020, 4:36pm

Photo by Rawpixel via iStock / Getty Images Plus

"I should bake bread" is something I've found myself thinking recently. Maybe you’ve had the same thought if you've been spending a lot of time online recently, where everyone! everywhere! is baking bread, as the empty shelves of flour and yeast and the run on sourdough starters online will confirm. Most of us already know that eating bread is a balm for the soul, but if the proliferation of proud baking posts is to be believed, the act of baking it is a form of therapy, too.

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If the prospect of spending hours on a sourdough boule sounds like the perfect way to pass another long week, and or if you simply welcome a new culinary challenge, then sure, you should bake bread. You will be welcomed into the flour-covered arms of Bread Twitter.

Here's another affirmation, though, in case you need it: You don't have to bake bread right now, even if everyone else is. If none of the things above bring you joy, then it's more than okay to keep buying squishy sandwich bread from the store. It's fine if you don't come out of this a baker, doling out artisanal loaves to all your friends.

As many people go from working in offices to working from home—or as a record-breaking 6.6 million people have recently found, not working at all—some have taken our collective isolation as an opportunity to double down on America's troubling attachment to capitalism, which pushes us to keep working harder and harder despite the many unexpected stressors of living through a global pandemic. According to those people, who might also say things like "Shakespeare wrote King Lear in quarantine," we can all use this time to be more productive: to pick up a side hustle or a new hobby, or to devote ourselves to self-improvement. If we look at a list of people who were "productive in quarantine," it can feel like we're supposed to do the same—that our master works will be born out of being stuck inside, and that perhaps all we needed to become better cooks, bakers, artists, writers, musicians, or at-home fitness practitioners was long, forced stretches of time at home.

In terms of giving ourselves something besides the news to focus on, there’s a good argument for productivity. But it can also feel like yet another form of pressure. Whether it’s a project, a podcast, or a beautiful loaf of fresh baked bread, the quiet expectation that we're supposed to come out of all of this, in however many months, with something to show for it is just another squeeze on our already weakened morales. On top of being anxious about the circumstances of COVID-19, I worry that I'm somehow "wasting" this time, and that I'm not "optimizing" my empty hours spent at home. At the very least, the thoughts dictate, I should be baking bread.

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In normal times, I dabble in a focaccia or banana bread or even an easy no-knead white bread, and that’s because I want to make those things. I know that if I pick up bread baking now, though, it’s at least in part motivated by the feeling of obligation and social pressure. Everyone who *really* likes food is doing it, so why don’t I?

As a person whose instinct is to think of the worst outcomes for everything, I can see the spiral that would come from taking on this new habit. To make bread, I need supplies, which means going to the store, waiting in line, and hoping I can get as big of a bag of flour as possible, in case my attempts go awry. At home, I'll need to read how to make bread, which is a process even if you're attempting something much simpler than sourdough. I'll hope and pray while it's in the oven, but I know that once I’ve cut into it, I'll inevitably compare it to bread I've bought or seen online. That would toss me down the rabbit hole of troubleshooting, reading phrases like "hydration" and "crumb" and how to improve them. Depending on how my bread turns out, I might feel bad about wasting not just the supplies, but the time I spent shopping, baking, and cleaning. I’ll stress about doing it all again with hopes of better results.

You might not feel this way about bread, but you might feel this way about some other task or hobby you see The Internet cheerily mastering, like sewing or doing 100 push-ups a day. If it gives you stress, remember that you don't have to do it; you can carry on as you did pre-pandemic, doing what you already know how to do to the best of your abilities.

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Of course I would like to be more productive and more efficient during this time of isolation, but I know that while bread making might release some people's anxiety, doing it—and then showing off how good I can become at it and simultaneously proving how much isolation can fuel my desire to produce—will only increase my stress and the expectations I put on myself.

Meanwhile, a loaf of very nice bread from nearby Roberta's only costs me about $6. I can make it stretch for a while if I keep it in the freezer, and the absolute truth is that it tastes worlds better than the bread I could make myself.

This article originally appeared on VICE US.

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Where Is Everyone Getting All of This Sourdough Starter All of a Sudden?

Grocery stores may be low on flour and yeast, but sourdough starter sellers are seeing huge increases in sales.

by Bettina Makalintal
Mar 30 2020, 1:03pm

Photo by Henn Photography via Cultura / Getty Images

In November 2019, a tweet from comedy writer Ellory Smith went viral. "If someone you know is getting deeply into making bread from scratch they are deeply depressed I promise you," Smith wrote, with a response of nearly 250,000 likes as of this writing. Now, in our current state of collective isolation, anxiety, and sadness, Smith's tweet reads like a prophecy.

As the news about the economy and COVID-19 grows bleaker every day, it seems that everyone is eating—and more specifically, baking—bread: so much bread that the Washington Post reported last week that stores online and in real life are running out of bread, flour, and yeast. According to Eater, Google searches for bread recipes have recently skyrocketed—even in comparison to beans, which are also experiencing a panic-buying boom.

People aren't just making any old bread, though. If Twitter is any indication of what we're all doing while we're "working from home," it would seem that everyone has suddenly picked up sourdough, a more intensive and attention-needing type of bread baking:

Sourdough gets its leavening from a starter, a mixture of flour and water that becomes tart, squishy, and bubbly as it grows natural yeast. Like a pet, a starter—which is a living organism—must be "fed" regularly with flour and water (like a pet, it can also die). Obtaining a starter often spurs a sourdough baking habit, a hobby with near-cult like devotion. According to statistics provided to VICE by Reddit, the subreddit forum r/Sourdough, with 67,000 subscribers, has seen activity go up by over 170 percent since January 1.

You can make a starter from scratch, sure. But the process takes at least five days, according to King Arthur Flour, who recommends using all-purpose flour in addition to whole wheat or rye flours because the outside bran of whole grains has more nutrients and micro-organisms to kick off the growth of yeast. That said, all of those things might be hard to come by at the moment. Though many people have created sourdough starter by using portions of friends' starters, popping by a friend's house to grab a bit seems ill-advised during our time of social distancing.

The sudden rise of #stayhome sourdough bread baking prompts the question, then: Where is everyone getting their starter all of a sudden?

In San Francisco, some people might have recently obtained their sourdough starter because it was attached in small, individual bags to a telephone pole with a flyer stating that its name is "Godrick" and that he likes to be "kept warm and fed regularly." The flyer included a phone number to call if the starter ran out; however, the person behind the giveaway told VICE that out of an abundance of caution regarding potential virus transmission, the free starter on the telephone pole is no longer.

Most people probably aren't grabbing bubbly, sour yeast from a telephone pole, though. Baker Savannah Turley used to run sourdough workshops in New York before COVID-19 prompted restaurant closures that pushed her to move back to California. Turley told VICE that she's "definitely noticed more people baking since the shit hit the fan."

Turley is even sharing her starter. "I have just started dehydrating my starter to mail around and have about 20 orders already," she said. Starter can be dehydrated for ease of shipping and a less time-sensitive shelf-life, though it can also be shipped in its hydrated form. "I had already sent mostly ready starter to a couple friends and will begin teaching Zoom classes next week by donation."

For those who don't have a professional bread baker for a friend, however, Turley recommended asking local businesses, who might also be able to help out in the age of empty flour shelves.

"Local bakeries are also selling flour and will give starter away," Turley said. "I think almost everyone knows someone who knows someone who has a starter and it infinitely regenerates, so there is plenty to [go] around. She Wolf [Bakery] regularly gives starter away. I know C&B in the East Village is doing the same."

At Leo, a sourdough-focused pizzeria in Brooklyn, co-owner Mike Fadem estimated "definitely over an 100% increase" in requests for sourdough starter in the past two weeks. In the past, Fadem told VICE, it's been more like one request per month, but they got at least 10 just last week. Leo sells its starter—which Fadem's roommate first created 10 years ago, and which Fadem has continued feeding ever since—for two dollars, and they're working on adding it to their delivery menu as well.

And of course, people are also seeking starters out online. Comparing sales to last March, Chris Barton of the Etsy store ZOURDOUGHstarter told VICE in an email, "We're currently running a 400 percent increase." Barton attributed this rise in interest to the fact that store-bought yeast has quickly sold out since stores don't stock large quantities of it. As a result, and alongside the realization that homemade bread is possible when you're stuck in your house or apartment for weeks on end, Barton said, "People turned to the internet and found us."

According to Barton, Zourdough was "uniquely positioned to supply thousands of starter yeast packets worldwide." Having sold starter yeast online for 10 years, Zourdough had built up a large inventory of starter before the interest really hit, and it has a machine that can package 1,000 units in just four hours. Despite that, Barton said that they had to "pull back a bit" on sales recently due to short supply. "As of this Friday, we will release the bonds we put on our sales and let it fly. I think we can keep production and shipping going 24-7," Barton said.

MomsSanFranSourdough, which sells starter on Etsy and on eBay, has also experienced an increase in sales, telling VICE in a message, "Sales picked up slightly when COVID first made it to the States, but when California went under the [shelter-in-place order], sales skyrocketed. Since then, as the other states followed California’s example, sales have continued to increase."

While it might seem self-sufficient and appealing to create your own starter, Barton still thinks there's an upside to getting a more developed one: "You can make your own starter, but it will be weak and basically tasteless for about 5-7 years. We sell verified OLD starters. Most of them are well into their 100-year-old range, so once the home person activates it, they have what we have… a good, active, sour, producing starter."

As the Washington Post wrote, it's long been known that cooking and baking can help anxiety since it gives our antsy brains and bodies something to do. That's all the more relevant when all our hobbies outside the home aren't possible. Throw in the fact that we're all tethered to our devices and that our brains all want to follow suit with what everyone else is doing, and it's no surprise that the cult of sourdough is taking over our Twitter feeds. It might not be the worst hobby to start, though.

"It's an absolutely insane time and I'm just glad people are baking. The rhythm of it definitely helps from going stir crazy," Turley said. "People just need a straightforward thing to do that will nourish and entertain them. Luckily, sourdough does both those things."

This article originally appeared on VICE US.

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People All Over the World Are Making Frothy 'Dalgona' Coffee, Thanks to Quarantine

The aesthetically pleasing drink only takes three ingredients—and the ASMR-style YouTube tutorials are the soothing content we need right now.

by Bettina Makalintal
Mar 20 2020, 12:15pm

Screenshots via 뚤기ddulgi and 서담SEODAM on YouTube

While the United States has "honeycomb" and New Zealand has "hokey pokey," South Korea calls its spongy toffee candy "dalgona" or ppopgi, a candy that's made by heating sugar, oil, and baking soda; mixing until it's thick and fluffy; then letting the mixture harden. Over the past few weeks, as coffee shops close amid government recommendations and as many of us retreat inside with our stockpile of groceries, dalgona has picked up new meaning with "dalgona coffee," an online global coffee trend.

In YouTube tutorials, TikToks, and posts on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter, people all over the world are making dalgona coffee, which consists of milk topped with a thick layer of coffee foam that's made by vigorously mixing instant coffee, sugar, and water. The drink seems to have earned its name from the foamy coffee topping, which resembles dalgona before its mixture of whipped oil and sugar is flattened. Its popularity is a confluence of multiple internet trends: fluffy food, ASMR videos, and, perhaps most importantly, the fact that so many people across the globe are now isolated or quarantined amid the global coronavirus outbreak and are now making coffee at home.

According to Google Trends, the phrase "dalgona coffee" was basically nonexistent until January 26 of this year, when there was a tiny blip of interest. On February 22, Korean YouTuber 뚤기ddulgi posted what's now the most viewed dalgona coffee video on YouTube, with over 2.8 million views. In the three-and-a-half-minute-long clip, 뚤기ddulgi uses a mixer to whip the coffee, sugar, and water into a foam so thick it looks more like frosting or caramel pudding and then dollops it onto a glass of milk and swirls it around. Unlike a latte or a cappuccino, in which the froth comes from aerated milk, the fluffiness of dalgona coffee comes from the coffee and sugar itself.

Other YouTubers quickly followed suit with their takes on dalgona coffee, also referred to as "frothy coffee" or "coffee stirred 400 times." On February 26, YouTuber 서담SEODAM posted a "frothy coffee" video that has 1.7 million views as of this writing; in December, 서담SEODAM had shared a video for dalgona milk tea. On February 28, YouTuber Hanse, who has 2.21 million subscribers, posted a dalgona coffee video as well, and since March 1, Google search interest for dalgona coffee has spiked.

screenshot of google trends results for
Screenshot via Google Trends

As the long lines and thousands of Instagram posts for Japan's fluffy souffle pancakes and pillowy cheesecakes have proven, there's an added novelty and fun to food that wiggles and jiggles a little bit, and the vision of spooning and smoothing the pillowy foam of dalgona coffee has a pleasurable appeal that translates through a computer screen.

Add to that the popularity of ASMR, in which videos focus on a range of pleasing sounds, and the rise of dalgona coffee videos makes sense. With little to no music and no narration, you can hear the light crunch of coffee grounds as someone scoops them with a spoon, the slosh the water makes when it's poured into the bowl, the clink of the whisk as it whips the foam, and the soft plop the mixture makes when it's dropped into a glass. Like YouTube's "home cafe" trend, in which people make videos as they assemble aesthetically pleasing drinks, the process of making dalgona coffee is soothing and relaxing to watch, even if you don't get the "tingles" some people associate with ASMR.

Though the early posters of dalgona coffee videos were based in Korea, people in Japan, Vietnam, Hong Kong, Germany, and the United States have taken hold of the trend—all countries with cases of COVID-19 and where there are mass communal efforts toward isolation and social distancing. Some of these videos acknowledge our new global circumstances: One from Malaysia shows a person making dalgona coffee on day one of the country's 14-day restricted movement order, while another from South Korea suggests making dalgona coffee if you're bored while in quarantine.

Beyond YouTube, people are sharing their versions of the drink on Twitter, TikTok (with 3.4 million views for the hashtag so far), and Facebook groups like Subtle Asian Eats, the food offshoot of Subtle Asian Traits.

In the United States, where 25 states have already issued limitations on food service businesses and where the push to #stayhome is growing as we take cues from the virus' effects in other countries, dalgona coffee is also having a moment.

Jammie, who is currently isolating in Michigan, learned about dalgona coffee through YouTuber Michelle Choi, also known as The Seoul Search. Having made the drink every morning for the past week, she told VICE that it's now her favorite way to drink coffee.

"Because people are called to stay indoors as much as possible and many cafes are closed during this COVID-19 outbreak, people are more open to trying out this drink at home," Jammie said.

Alyssa, who is based in Texas, told VICE that she tried dalgona coffee after learning about it on Facebook and Twitter, and it was so good that she made a second drink just three hours later. What she likes about it is how simple the ingredients are and how easy it is to make, even if you don't use a hand mixer.

"I believe everyone is trying to get their specialty coffee fix without having to leave the house. Yes, there’s Starbucks and there’s small coffee shops that are still open, but since everyone’s at home, might as well make it from home," she said. "But I also think that if we weren’t in quarantine, it would still be popular."

Joben, who is "pretty isolated" in Arizona, said that the only thing getting him out of the house at the moment is getting groceries. He learned about dalgona coffee through 서담SEODAM's YouTube, and he isn't surprised that it's taken off so much online.

"Honestly, this recipe/trend hit at just the right moment. It started when quarantine started to happen and groceries started to run out of many ingredients," he told VICE. "The simplicity of the recipe is what I believe made it popular. Hot water, sugar, and instant coffee—most people have that in their pantries and if not, sugar and instant coffee is still readily available in grocery stores."

According to Joben, one thing he likes about the dalgona coffee trend is how everyone has made it their own. He thinks there's potential for the technique beyond drinks: folding the coffee mixture with whipped cream, for example, could become a filling for pastries. Meanwhile, on TikTok, people are applying the same technique to matcha powder.

"Food has an amazing ability to bring people together. When people want comfort, many people turn to food," Joben said. "Also, I think it was just fun to see everyone on [Facebook] make their own version of a recipe and share their experiences. Reading about people (like me) struggle without electric mixers and trying to hand mix it was funny to read about. Good thing I've worked in a few restaurants."

This article originally appeared on VICE US.

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Belgian Researchers Are Using Insect Fat in Baked Goods

Most study participants who tried desserts made with larvae fat weren't put off by the flavor, texture, or appearance.

by Jelisa Castrodale
Feb 17 2020, 1:23pm

Photo: Getty Images

According to reptile breeders, black soldier fly larvae (Hermetia illucens) are one of the best things to feed bearded dragons, chameleons, geckos, and other cold-blooded pets, because they're high in essential nutrients, and can also be stored in the fridge for several weeks.

Gardeners and farmers have praised the larvae for what they're willing to eat, which is a disgusting assortment of carrion, garbage, manure, and mold. That less-than-discerning diet makes them helpful for waste reduction and pest control; after making quick work of a manure pile, the larvae's leftovers can be used as compost or processed into animal feed. And their ability to eat all that shit so quickly means that farms don't have to deal with the smell, or with pesky flies that might be attracted to it.

And now a group of researchers at a university in Belgium have suggested that those same insect larvae might also be a pretty good butter substitute in baked goods. For humans.

Ghent University scientists prepared three almost-identical versions of waffles, cookies, and cakes, and served them up to a group of 344 consumers in a blind taste test. For each baked good, there was a "normal" version made with butter; a version in which 25% of the butter had been replaced with black soldier fly larvae fat; and a version that was made with 50% butter, 50% insect fat. (The study participants were informed in advance that the samples they selected "might have contained an insect ingredient.")

According to the results, which were published in the journal Food Quality and Preference, most participants weren't put off at all by the flavor, texture, or appearance of the cookies and cakes that had been made with 25% insect fat. The individuals who ate the waffles also made positive comments about all three versions, including the 50-50 butter-and-insect-fat combination. (The researchers noted that in their own pre-tests, using more than 50% insect fat "noticeably influenced the sensory properties of the samples.")

"Insect fat is a different type of fat than butter” researcher Daylan Tzompa-Sosa said in a statement. “Insect fat contains lauric acid, which provides positive nutritional attributes since it is more digestible than butter. Moreover, lauric acid has an antibacterial, antimicrobial and antimycotic effect. This means that it is able, for example, to eliminate harmless various viruses, bacteria or even fungi in the body, allowing it to have a positive effect on health.”

Tzompa-Sosa has been researching the viability of using insects to replace butter, margarine, and other edible fats for several years. In 2016, she was part of a team at Wageningen University and Research Center in the Netherlands that turned mealworm fat into an oil that was similar to a combination of canola and soybean oils. "We're not allowed to eat it because it's made in a lab,” she told the Washington Post at the time. “It smells very mild ... grassy. It's not bad."

Although the results of the baked good taste tests seem promising, it's still way too soon to add black soldier larvae fat to your Instacart order.

"Currently the price is still too high, because it is only produced on a small scale," Ghent University researcher Joachim Schouteten said. "We will have to investigate what consumers think on a larger scale."

And if humans ultimately don't go for it, then imagine the possibilities for that tiny bearded dragon bakery you've always wanted to open.

This article originally appeared on VICE US.