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Chapter 3
Kneading Comfort, Community,
Craftsmanship
Home Baking in the Coroniverse1
Lucy M. Long and Theresa A. Vaughan
Introduction
An unexpected response to the COVID-19 pandemic in the US was a rise in home baking,
particularly of bread (Marvar 2020; Mull 2020).2 We say unexpected because recent trends had
been moving away from the reliance on bread as a staple of the foodways practices that had
historically defined mainstream, British-based American food culture (Levenstein 1988; Wallach
2013). Prior to the pandemic, concerns over the impact of carbohydrates from grains on body
weight and a rise of awareness of gluten sensitivities had limited the consumption of bread.
Those concerns seemed to be dismissed with the arrival of the pandemic, and there appeared to
be a return to bread as the staff of life—or at least the staple for meals—for many Americans.
Baking itself emerged as an activity frequently discussed on social media, and the necessary
ingredients went into high demand. A wide variety of types and forms of bakery items were
shared and celebrated, both virtually and in real life. These include what are considered
“artisanal” breads, but also other baked goods, both sweet and savory—pies, cakes, cookies,
muffins, biscuits, turnovers, and a host of other pastries. While concerns over the safety of
grocery shopping and the availability of supplies motivated some of this activity,3 baking’s
popularity seemed to go far beyond nutritional needs. Drawing from social media, news
accounts, ethnographic data, and personal experiences,4 we examine this popularity, exploring
the functions baking served. Recognizing that all foodways activities can have multiple
meanings, we identify three themes around baking that offer insights into why and how
individuals participated in baking: comfort, community, and craftsmanship. These themes
demonstrate ways in which home baking offered creative ways to cope with the pandemic. In
many cases they overlap and support each other, reflecting the interconnected nature of
motivations as well as of social networks. These themes also illustrate the rise of vernacular
strategies and expertise, with “vernacular” referring to everyday cultural practices and
expressions of specific groups.
In his influential 1995 article on religion, Leonard Primiano joined scholars such as
Henry Glassie and Margaret Lantis (1988) in calling for the use of vernacular rather than folk as
the qualifier for the subject of folklorists’ study.5 This word represented a shift away from some
of the simplistic and inaccurate dichotomies between official and unofficial cultures and between
folk and elite cultures made by earlier scholars. It also, in Primiano’s formulation, asserted a
methodology and perspective that addressed lived experience and personal interpretation as the
bases for artistry and practice (Primiano 1995, 43). He recognized that the vernacular exists
within a dynamic and dialogic relationship with the institutions and groupings within a society
that represent hierarchies of power and authority. Primiano’s theorizing challenged the ways in
which scholars were approaching the study of belief, but more relevant to home baking, it
emphasized the potential for individuals to assert their own meanings and identities.
Vernacular culture from this perspective can be understood as challenging the larger,
more dominant structures—the official policies and teachings, mass-mediated culture, and
individuals that are held up as the official authorities of culture. We suggest that this is what
happened with home baking during the pandemic—although, somewhat ironically, often through
social media—a type of mass-mediated culture in which the individual is the producer rather
than the consumer. We also recognize that many of the participants in this vernacular response
were most likely from social classes and identities that, in “normal” times, would be part of those
dominant structures. While we were not able to determine the socioeconomic standing of
individuals, we can assume in most cases a certain amount of privilege. The ability to work from
home as well as to have access to ingredients, cooking facilities, and the skills and knowledge
needed for baking implies a certain social standing that reflects the disparities of race, class, and
gender in American society. As one observer concluded about the sourdough trend, it “upheld
white privilege, racism, and classism by widening gaps in food access and marginalizing Black
bakers” (Dadalt 2021). We agree, however, also to recognize the complexity of individuals
working within whatever constraints face them and to admit the possibility for change.
Sociologists studying “foodie” trends before and during the pandemic came to a similar
conclusion: “These experiences involve privilege, but they are not straightforwardly restricted to
self-described foodies or upper-middle class white eaters. In a world of tremendous uncertainty
and risk, preparing and enjoying food can feel deeply comforting, providing a soothing balm
against the hardships of the outside world” (Oleschuk et al. 2021).6
Shortages of flour and yeast followed the sudden demand for those ingredients, but
instead of dampening enthusiasm, they inspired creativity, innovation, and sharing. Concerns
over gluten sensitivities led to experimentation with flour varieties as well as virtual interactions
with other people to find solutions. Previous admonitions by the weight loss industry to cut back
on carbohydrates were ignored, and individuals focused on the emotional and social qualities of
baked goods rather than their caloric or nutritional ones. The offerings by professional chefs of
recipes for gourmet “comfort foods” and the food industries’ definitions of that category were
taken as inspiration for individuals to create what was personally meaningful to them rather than
as prescriptions that had to be followed. Furthermore, such baking asserted identities and values,
and established and confirmed membership in social groups and relationships.
Home baking, then, represents vernacular culture finding ways to cope with the pandemic
that went beyond the biological need for food. It offered a way in which individuals could
address the isolation and fears accompanying the pandemic, providing an avenue for creativity,
for distraction from the tedium of lockdowns, and for a sense of control during a time of
uncertainty. It also brought attention to individuals who might have previously been overlooked,
allowing them to emerge as knowledge-holders and authorities. In some cases, it was the basis
for the development of groups that then challenged the values and structures of contemporary
society and the industrial food complex. These emergent communities and practices around
home baking are asserting the value of vernacular culture during this pandemic.
Comfort
One of the most obvious and oft-cited reasons for baking was comfort (Easterbrook-Smith 2021;
Ocklenburg 2020; Güler and Haseki 2021; O’Connell 2021). Food media as well as social media
posts, oral history interviews, and our own experiences all attested to the comforting effects of
both preparing and consuming baked goods. This is particularly interesting because before
thepandemic in the US, bread, pastries, and the like tended to fall into the category of fattening,
carb-laden foods of which people watching their weight and cholesterol levels should be wary.
The concept of comfort food in the context of the pandemic has been explored elsewhere (Long
2020; Long et al. 2021), but categorizing these items as “comfort food” gave “permission” for
people to eat those foods when under stress, relieving them of the moral associations with such
eating as indicating a lack of self-discipline or an unhealthy interest in “things of the flesh”
(Jones 2017; Jones and Long 2017; Long 2022).7
The pandemic was a period of stress filled with uncertainty about the future, fears of
sickness and death, social isolation, and worries about meeting the challenges of daily life as
well as the tedium of lockdowns. Baking was presented in food media as a way to deal with this
stress, and social media quickly became filled with postings of photographs and accounts of
making bread, pastries, cakes, pies, cookies, and other baked “goodies” (Giorgis 2020; Goldberg
2020). A closer look at the needs fulfilled by comfort food offers explanations for the popularity
of baked products as a comfort food as well as of baking itself as a “comfort foodway.” Those
needs have been identified by medical sociologists and psychologists as physical comfort,
nostalgia, indulgence, convenience, and belonging (Locher 2002; Locher et al. 2005; Troisi and
Gabriel 2011).8 Each of these needs is addressed through baking as a vernacular practice,
especially when we shift the emphasis to the processes and practices involved and not just the
product. The needs also are not mutually exclusive but can be fulfilled simultaneously or
highlighted at different points in the processes surrounding baking.9 Looked at from the
psychological point of view, baking as pandemic activity fulfills not just the lowest level of
Maslow’s hierarchy of needs (physiological) but also the higher-level needs for belonging, love,
and esteem (Ocklenburg 2020).
Of the five needs, one of the most obvious ones initially was physical comfort. The
pandemic was recognized at different times across the world, but it struck throughout the winter
of 2020. In the US, the colder weather made it sensible to warm the house by using the oven,
something less likely to be attractive in seasons and places with higher temperatures. The aroma
of breads and other products baking added to the physical comfort offered, and the heat they
exuded when done physically warmed eaters who were too impatient to wait for them to cool off.
Beyond the warmth of the breads themselves was the physical comfort gained from the
exertions involved in sifting flours, kneading dough, and lifting loaves from the oven. For the
many individuals involved in remote work, even the movements involved in reaching for
ingredients or simply walking from other parts of the house to the kitchen offered a respite from
sitting in front of the computer screen. The kneading of bread further seemed to offer physical
comfort to many. Its very repetitiveness can have a meditative quality, and it seemed to force an
attentiveness to the process that individuals found calming (Siragusa 2021). The taste of the
bread can also be seen as a physical comfort that engaged all the senses, giving an embodied
sense of pleasure as well as a focusing of attention.10 According to one study, baking not only
served as a “hedonic” activity—one that gave fleeting pleasure and sensory stimulation—but
also offered eudaimonic, or self-actualized, experiences (Güler and Haseki 2021).
Indulgence, another of the needs identified, was also openly recognized. The
uncertainties during the pandemic around food shortages and the future made concerns about
calories seem irrelevant. A frequently expressed attitude on social media was encapsulated in the
familiar proverb “Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we may die.” In any case, the stress
accompanying the pandemic and the lack of other familiar outlets for comfort seemed to give
public permission to indulge in what we could—and that was formerly forbidden baked goods.
Indulgence was also closely tied to physical comfort in that baking offered sensory pleasure and
aesthetic engagement, two qualities frequently pushed aside in the usual higher valuing of
productivity and achieving tangible goals.11
A third need potentially met by comfort food is that of nostalgia, a longing or sentimental
affection for the past. It assumes that our memories of the past are positive and warm and will
evoke feelings of affirmation. Such memories oftentimes are romanticizations of childhood and
earlier times, while negative memories are ignored or dismissed.12 The idea that bread is
automatically a fond part of each American’s past speaks to the assumption that “proper”13
mainstream American food culture is based on British and other western European culinary
traditions.14 Bread in a variety of forms was historically as well as today a basic staple in western
European food cultures. Yeast breads made from wheat tended to be the provenance of the
wealthy and privileged in those cultures, but they became normative for what was considered
mainstream healthy eating in the US.
The reality in the US, though, is that homemade bread was not necessarily the stuff of
American childhoods. Not all residents grew up on a bread-centric diet. For those who did,
commercially produced soft white breads made from highly processed wheat was the staple of
many American homes and was pushed by home economists as early as the 1890s as being
healthier and more acceptable than the coarser, denser, and darker breads of many of the
European immigrants with peasant or laborer backgrounds (Levenstein 1988; Wallach 2013). In
terms of gendered labor in the United States, this move from baking bread in the home
effectively removed baking from being largely the domain of women to being produced
commercially by men. Although women seemed to welcome the convenience of store-bought
bread and baked goods, this change follows a familiar pattern of women’s work becoming
monetized when it is taken up by men (Easterbrook-Smith 2021).
Homemade breads in the much of the twentieth-century US represented either pioneer
lifestyles that persisted in rural farmhouses or poor mountain homes or the “hippie” ethos of the
1960s counterculture (Belasco [1993] 2014; Deutsch 2019; Dutch 2018). Baking bread at home
was seen in mainstream culture as odd and unnecessary. Lucy can attest from personal
experience growing up in both urban and rural areas of the South that children who brought to
school sandwiches made of such bread were looked upon with pity or disdain and were
oftentimes teased, while Theresa, who grew up in a multicultural university town, saw less of
this. Home-baked desserts, however, were appreciated, and now that commercial products are so
easily available, tend to carry high social value. Home-baked bread also regained status in the
2000s, seen as reflecting skill, cosmopolitan and sophisticated tastes, and possession of leisure
time (Dutch 2018). The “foodie” trend in the US, with its obsession on the origins and
preparation of dishes, has contributed to this perception, but part of that value may be derived
from the association of home-baked breads with cultures in which artisanal breads are perceived
as a daily staple and life seems to feature a successful balance of work and pleasure. The food
cultures of France, Italy, and Spain have long been held up as models of refined cuisines, and all
feature wheat-flour yeast breads. Similarly, there is currently a trend toward appreciating the
heartier breads of eastern and central Europe as well as of Ireland. The nostalgia fulfilled through
eating these breads, then, may be more a matter of imagined, romanticized pasts than the realities
of individual histories.
The fourth need identified by scholars as fulfilling needs for comfort is convenience. At
first glance, this need does not seem to be especially relevant during the pandemic. After all,
home baking usually involves time and effort and results in numerous dishes and surfaces to
clean afterwards. The final product, however, can be seen as a convenient meal or snack. A slice
of bread can easily be made a meal by adding toppings, and it can conveniently be served on a
napkin or plate and held in the hand. A piece of pie or cake might require utensils and dishes, but
homemade cookies can be picked up by hand. Any of these can be eaten whenever and wherever
is convenient for the consumer.
Another aspect of convenience is that lockdown orders and remote work meant that many
people were now at home for long hours (Faludi and Crosby 2021). This made it convenient to
find the time for kneading dough, waiting for it to rise, and then baking it. While these processes
would not normally be seen as convenient, since they tend to take extensive stretches of time as
well as effort and equipment, they could now be fit in between other chores or work and
provided much-needed breaks from computer screens and virtual meetings. This suggests class
and gender issues around the question of who was working at home and under what
circumstances.15 Furthermore, the living situations and specific circumstances of individuals and
groups would shape whether or not taking the space and time to bake would be convenient.16
Belonging was also identified by researchers as a need fulfilled by comfort food (Troisi
and Gabriel 2011). In studies of people with “secure attachment” (those with positive
relationships with others), researchers found that those individuals enjoyed comfort food more
when they felt isolated or their relationships were threatened. The corollary was that comfort
food fulfilled the natural need social beings have to belong, for a sense that they have a place in
society and matter to other people (Troisi et al. 2015). Home baking fulfilled this need in several
ways, both physically and virtually. Family and friend relationships were built and affirmed
through exchanges of knowledge, ingredients, and final products, even if necessarily done at a
distance by phone, email, or social media. Baking cakes from a recipe passed down over
generations can reinforce a sense of belonging to a particular place and people, as does baking
items from one’s cultural heritage.17 Sharing sourdough starters, equipment, or cookbooks
established networks that could then develop into social relationships, creating what can be seen
as folk groups built around a common experience. Knowing that there were people sharing that
experience made individuals feel less isolated and alone.
The need to belong was heightened during the pandemic by the closing of public spaces
and the need to social distance as a way of curtailing the virus. In response, a number of
individuals intentionally started virtual groups to meet their own social needs. There also
emerged awareness of the isolation others might be experiencing and mindfulness of the need to
reach out to them. Out of these shared experiences and recognitions there then emerged a number
of communities, some probably short-lived, but others perhaps lasting beyond the pandemic (see
figure 3.1).
[insert fig. 3.1.]
Figure 3.1. Theresa Vaughan, a member of the Facebook group Modern Hand
Embroidery, learned to bake bread during the pandemic, and in March
2021embroidered a kitchen towel she used to keep her bread warm. (Photo by
Sarah Romes Walker, used with permission.)
Judging from social media accounts, ethnographic research, and personal experiences,
home-baked goods and practices offered comfort to many people on a number of levels. The
vernacular practices of finding comfort through food and foodways, however, challenge the food
industry’s appropriation of the concept (Long 2022). Rather than focusing on specific products
that reflected a definition of “proper” American eating as being of British heritage and pioneer-
based, the new vernacular conceptions of comfort food recognized the diversity of backgrounds
and identities that make up the nation. Chefs offered comfort foods from their own childhoods
outside the US mainstream, and some social media sites encouraged individuals to look beyond
the mainstream for potential comfort.18 Posts on social media of baked goods such as bagels,
South American empanadas, steamed Chinese rice-flour buns, and pastries with “exotic”
ingredients illustrated this expansion. According to the Human Relations Area Files at Yale,
comfort food, which could be ramen noodles, curries, Spam, soup dumplings, congee, and other
foods of different cultural origins, saw an explosion of interest during the pandemic. For families
who were scattered across borders, sharing pictures of or exchanging recipes for familiar home
food brought a sense of personal connection and comfort to isolated individuals and
communities.19
Vernacular responses also are challenging the morality implied in the use of the phrase
“comfort food,” presenting food and foodways as comforting without the associated guilt or
shame (Long 2022). The initial impetus for preparing and consuming home-baked goods may
partially have been to relieve stress—and thereby “justified”—but their consumption emphasized
the aesthetic experience and delight that came from them. Individuals did at times bemoan
weight gained from these foods (Koenig 2020), but nevertheless there seemed to be a shift in
values recognizing the importance of such experiences.
Responses also seem to emphasize the potential sociability of sharing baked goods and of
consuming them together—whether virtually or physically. That commensality is now
recognized by the general public as well as some scholars20 as being just as important, and
perhaps even more so, as the nutritional qualities of a dish. In this way, the individual uses of
comfort food challenged medical-nutritional mainstream approaches to healthful eating, asserting
that food is more than just the calories and nutrients it contains.
Community
The need to belong pushed some people into affirming previously established relationships as
well as creating new ones. Family, neighborhood, religion, work, and personal interests had
oftentimes brought people together in the past, and those networks continued to form the basis
for social interactions during the pandemic, whether virtual or physical. Numerous other social
groups emerged, and a number of these focused on some aspects of foodways—gardening;
shopping for groceries; eating together; sharing cooking knowledge, recipes, ingredients, or
equipment; and, of course, baking, particularly of bread. Groups focused on bread and baking,
like other groups, varied in purpose, structure, and medium for interacting. Some emerged in
response to fears of shortages of foodstuffs (flour and yeast, notably); some grew out of the
search for specific ingredients, recipes, or know-how; and others were established or affirmed by
sharing the final products of baking. Some were intentionally developed around baking, but
others were brought together by factors such as shared hobbies, having children in the same
school, or simply living in the same neighborhood or apartment building. Lucy, for example, met
regularly with a small number of people to play old-time music, and the group oftentimes shared
baking stories and successes. Many of the groups were virtual, while others included physical
proximity or face-to-face interaction (hopefully with masks and social distancing). Whether these
numerous groupings will last beyond the pandemic remains to be seen, but they were commonly
referred to as “communities.”
The word community is used colloquially to refer to a group that has a welcoming and
friendly attitude. The group can exist in physical space or can be virtual, but the essential
criterion for being a member of a community tends to be an emotional perception that one
belongs. There is also an implication of mutual concern, respect, and consideration between
members, so that there is an expectation that people within a community will come to each
other’s assistance if needed (Long 2015, 52–53). If they do not, the group fails as a community.
This sense of mutual obligation to and responsibility for each other was highlighted
during the pandemic, so that people frequently invoked those references in talking about groups
they were in, as well as larger geographic and political regions surrounding them. A strong sense
of community developed around food: not just sharing food, but also in sharing the labor in
producing, harvesting, preparing, and preserving it. To understand how and why these
communities developed, it is helpful to step back and analyze them first as folk groups.
A folk group is any group of people who share a commonality and develop expressive
traditions out of that commonality (Bauman 1972). Those traditions reflect not only the
commonality but also the individual interests, identities, circumstances, and abilities of specific
members of that group. Because the members of groups differ, no two folk groups will be the
same even though they may share a great deal in common. ideally, this also makes them
dynamic, adaptable to new needs and individuals, although the need to adapt oftentimes calls
into question the identity of the group and of power hierarchies within it. Two conditions are
needed for folk groups to develop: proximity or contact and regular interaction (Noyes 2003;
Sims and Stephens 2005). That interaction allows for traditions to emerge and for the nature of
the group to be negotiated. This dynamic quality also means that there are primary
commonalities that bring people together and then secondary ones that can affirm the group—or
act as the impetus for the emergence of a smaller group.
The pandemic offered a commonality—COVID-19—that was shared globally. Not
everyone had the same experiences or the same interpretations, however, so the initial sense of a
worldwide community joined in a common fight seemed to fracture, in the US at least, into
numerous subgroups. Similarly, food as a culturally constructed category and the biological need
to eat are also shared commonalities that tend to define humanity across the world. Those topics
were frequent subjects of discussion in news and social media as well as in virtual and face-to-
face social interactions. Also, the shortages of certain items as well as concerns about entering
public spaces to shop for groceries acted as a commonality for some. Bread, yeast, and flour
were all difficult to acquire at different times and places due to breaks in the supply chain,
shortages of supermarket staff, and a need for more production time to meet demand (Castrodale
2020). This inspired groups to share either those materials or the knowledge of how to make or
find substitutions for the commercial products. Theresa recounts that a social network developed
among her friends and neighbors around the getting and sharing of ingredients for baking:
I began scouring Amazon, King Arthur, and several other websites for flour and yeast, as well as
other items I couldn’t find locally. Some things weren’t available there, and flour and yeast could
be had but only in fifty-pound bags or huge commercial blocks intended for commercial baking . .
. This is when it occurred to me that others were experiencing the same issues finding staples. I
connected with friends and colleagues on Facebook to ask if there were any sightings of flour or
yeast. Lots of friends reported being astonished that it had all disappeared. We bemoaned the fact
that people were hoarding as we put our heads together to try to figure out how to get supplies.
Some of us would go to grocery stores early in the morning looking for flour, yeast, baking supplies,
and other staples and would send out an alert to others saying what store and what time had what
supplies so we could hopefully get there before everything was gone. Some people bought the
overpriced fifty-pound bags of flour and shared them with friends. Some of us kept our eyes on
online sites and reported where we found items. I eventually checked the online site of a flour mill
in Arkansas that I had visited on vacation. As soon as they began to restock, I ordered flour and, as
a bonus, they were giving away yeast with the flour.
Socializing in person gave way to making stronger connections through social media and
Zoom meetings—and baking gave us something to talk about besides how overworked we were or
our grief over not seeing friends, or worse, having those close to us become ill and sometimes die.
While the pandemic kept us physically apart, a shared experience, need for comfort and diversion,
and strategizing about getting the supplies we needed brought us together in a different way.
The yeast shortage in particular seemed to inspire the emergence of social networks.21
The scarcity of yeast was caused by a number of factors: demand for it spiked during a period
when suppliers expect lower demand (after the winter holidays), yeast can only be grown and
processed so fast, and pandemic lockdowns and closures caused issues with packaging supplies
and packaging businesses (Mak 2020). Sourdough starters, a mixture of dough that has been
allowed to “capture” and carefully nurture wild yeasts floating in the air, were shared and passed
along among people in physical proximity (Delap 2020). These starters were then used in place
of yeast to make bread (and other foods such as pancakes), giving a slightly tangy taste to the
final product. Some extolled the virtues of sourdough for its healthful properties, noting also that
the acidic nature of the bread that comes from the fermented yeast results in a longer shelf life
(Sofo et al. 2021). Posts on social media disseminated knowledge of how to capture wild yeasts
and create a starter. It seemed popular also for people to name their starters and to recount their
provenance, creating something like a lineage that connected the lucky recipient of the starter to
other people or places. Theresa’s first starter, for example, was named Audrey after the friend
who had given it to her. In some cases, sharing starters created groups whose members then
shared the final products, coming full circle and reinforcing the sense of community.
These sourdough starter “communities” also illustrate the complexity of these types of
groups. Many had other commonalities that had brought them together prior to the pandemic—
physical proximity in a neighborhood, hobbies, work, family ties—providing a preestablished
network. Not everyone in those groups was interested in sourdough, but sharing the starter both
reinforced those existing ties and offered a basis for a new group.
One sourdough group Lucy participated in as a consumer illustrates this layering of
commonalities. All the members played old-time and contradance music and oftentimes got
together to jam. Some also participated in other activities—dancing, kayaking, camping, hiking.
Lucy met at a campground with a subset of the total group to share loaves of bread made with a
sourdough starter that had been passed around among them several weeks earlier. As a musician
and camper, she was invited into the group even though she had not participated in the sharing of
the starter—primarily because she lived too far away. Also, one individual had used the starter
for gluten-free bread, made specifically for his spouse. This bread reflected the ways in which an
item can represent both a group as a whole and an individual member.
The need to acquire the skills for making bread was also a commonality for a number of
groups. Prior to the pandemic, these groups would have included physical gatherings, but the
need to social distance forced them to interact virtually. A Facebook group to which Lucy
belonged was started by a well-known old-time musician, Bruce Molsky, specifically to share
information, knowledge, and experiences around baking. Fiddle and Dough was a “closed
group”—people had to be allowed to join by the administrator. Molsky established the group in
February 2020, very early in the pandemic, but he lived in New York, one of the first
“epicenters” of COVID-19 in the US. In Molsky’s words, “This group is for players and lovers
of all kinds of traditional and roots music who love to bake bread! Let’s share recipes, photos of
our baking successes and failures, tips, stories, links and advice. Let’s let our love of one of the
most simple and important foods bring us together in a satisfying, yeasty and fermented way.
The biga the story, the better. Ok, sorry. Let’s have some fun with this!” (quoted with
permission).
The invitation delineates the commonalities of the group—a love of traditional music and
of baking bread—and there is an expectation that any new members will appreciate those
commonalities. There is also an in-joke that would signal to readers that the group is serious
about baking and suggests a certain amount of previous knowledge and experience. Spelling
“bigger” as “biga” refers to a form of single-use “yeasted pre-ferment” oftentimes used in Italian
bread baking. One member of the group responded with a similar pun: “Can’t believe I missed
your penny wise & pound ‘poolish’ ‘biga’ joke.” Poolish is another baking term, originally the
Polish word for the pre-ferment. Whether or not the individual posting it has a connection to
Poland is unclear—and unnecessary, since the joke references additional knowledge about
baking practices, speaking to the group based on its common interest in baking rather than ethnic
identity.
Other groups focused on baking as their primary commonality, some even specifying
types of breads or grains.22 Some groups formed around baking were less formal in their
structure and intent, using baking simply as a focus for virtual gatherings. For example, a friend
of Lucy’s began a monthly cooking/eating Zoom event, inviting a small number of individuals
who had all worked together previously. Each month, one person would select a dish and send
out recipes. Everyone would collect the ingredients and then, while on Zoom, prepare the food,
consume it simultaneously, and critique the end result. These conversations inevitably turned
into discussions of a personal nature, an indication that the group was a community in which
members felt welcomed and accepted.
This group focused on baking twice. In the run-up to Christmas 2020, they held a cookie-
decorating party, trying to re-create virtually the ritual cookie decorating and exchanges that are
frequently a part of that holiday’s celebration. One member sent a number of recipes from which
individuals selected the cookies they wanted to make and prepared them ahead of time. The time
together on Zoom was spent decorating the cookies, discussing the process, and recounting past
attempts at such endeavors. There was also a great deal of aesthetic satisfaction—and envy—as
everyone shared their final products on the screen (see figure 3.2).
[insert fig. 3.2]
Figure 3.2. Virtual Christmas cookie decorating, December 2020. (Photos by
Susan Eleuterio, used with permission.)
Similarly, for St. Patrick’s Day, Lucy shared a recipe for Irish soda bread and led an
online cooking demonstration of how to make it the Northern Irish style, on a stovetop griddle
instead of in the oven. In both cases, the baking was an affirmation of friendships that already
existed, but the activity also added a layer of commonality that turned the group into what feels
now like a community.
Family groups that baked together seemed to have an additional purpose of passing along
traditions. Baking was an excuse to connect virtually, but it also involved familial identity and
history through the recipes and knowledge that were being celebrated—and preserved. One
participant in the comfort food project recounted how she began teaching a niece to make family
recipes via Zoom:
I gave her a cooking lesson. I gave her the recipe ahead of time and then she and I made blintzes
together, it was so much fun. So she loved that, and next on our list is cinnamon rolls, which [my]
grandmother, my bubbeh, . . . used to make these amazing yeast cinnamon rolls. She would make
them for everybody . . .—she had four kids and all these grandchildren, she would make a big pot
of them for everybody and either my cousin and she find somebody to deliver them on Friday
morning, so we would have them for Saturday morning breakfast. (H.G.S., Comfort Foodways Oral
History interview, Summer 2020)
This sampling of the variety of groups that developed around bread and baking raises the
question of whether or not they could be considered communities in the scholarly sense. Not
everyone was welcome in them; each set parameters for membership, and some, especially the
ones focusing more on artisanal breads and pastries, seemed to require a certain amount of
technical baking knowledge and skill to fully participate.23 As these were voluntary groups,
however, individuals, particularly in the virtual networks, could easily disengage or fade into the
background. Also, in a number of cases, administrators and organizers of the groups emphasized
that learning and sharing knowledge were purposes of the group and that interactions needed to
be respectful and helpful. Such rules encouraged the sense of those groups being communities in
that they would accept members’ individual abilities, identities, and interests as long as they
agreed on the commonality. In this way, the groups are perhaps more typical of face-to-face
interactions.
The significance of these groups being perceived as communities is obvious given the
circumstances of the pandemic. COVID-19 crossed national borders and ignored the usual lines
drawn in societies around race, class, gender, religion, and even abilities.24 It had the potential of
affecting the health of every individual across the globe. It also affected some communities,
nations, and regions more than others. In the United States, for example, the high mortality and
morbidity rates in some Indigenous nations were tragic, and the loss of elders keenly felt
(McLernon 2021). For those who recognized that threat or felt the economic, social, or
psychological repercussions of it, the idea of community was both a comfort and a solution. As a
global pandemic, COVID-19 was a commonality reflecting and emphasizing the connectedness
of all people. Closing down borders ironically affirmed those connections, although a number of
individuals then interpreted the closings as threats to their own well-being. It is no surprise,
however, that communities would emerge around the commonality of food. The specific focus
on bread and baking in the US reflects the symbolism and romanticized nostalgia associated with
those products and activities. Further observation is needed to determine whether other nations
and cultural groups selected different foodways activities to emphasize.
These groups affirmed the diversity as well as the individuality of US citizens—we could
choose to connect with others who shared our interests, abilities, and tastes around baking. Not
all of us were required to make bread; we could bake other items.
Not all of us had to acquire specialized skills to be part of the groups; “lurking” was, for
the most part, permissible and accepted. This possibility for the performance of individuality
challenges the sense of collective community that could have been possible during the pandemic
and was hoped for by public health officials meekly requesting people to wear masks, social
distance, and take other precautions for keeping the virus at bay. Even as of this writing in the
summer of 2022, vaccinations were seen as a personal choice, an assertion of the rights of the
individual over the rights of the collective that threatens the health of the entire nation. There is a
long history of this phenomenon in the US (Leask 2020). The wide range of groups that emerged
around baking reflects the basic American ethos of individualism and illustrates smaller
collectives based on personal preferences and identities.
There also were many for whom the pandemic caused economic, social, and emotional
hardships that could not be easily assuaged by spending an afternoon kneading dough and
watching it rise. The turn to baking could be seen as a reflection of privilege and the groups
developing around it as elitist and self-indulgent, dismissive or unaware of the realities of other
people’s lives. The emphasis on what is usually considered artisanal baking in the US was
interpreted in this way by some, partly because of the associations of such baking with foodies,
sophistication, and money.25 While some individuals approached baking as cultural capital and
were able to participate in these communities because of economic or social privilege,
motivations for participating in specific practices and groups can be multiple and complex. The
need to belong seems to be a universal of human behavior, and the pandemic accentuated that
need. Also, some of these groups did go out of their way not only to make members feel
welcome but to also contribute to the broader community. Postings in one virtual baking group,
for example, told of donating their excess baked goods to food pantries, neighbors who might be
in need, or to free community meals. Such offerings can be seen as a reaching out to expand the
community of bakers.
Will these baking-focused “communities” continue after the pandemic? Folk groups that
develop a range of traditions and expressive forms tend to last longer, so those that were based
only on one aspect of bread making and did not allow for other interactions were probably not as
strong. Geographic and physical proximity may contribute also, since there is then more
potential for informal and unplanned interactions. It remains to be seen, then, whether or not the
virtual baking groups will fade over time as individuals get back to routine life.26 The knowledge
gained will continue, as will memories of shared experiences during the pandemic. Those
memories can remind individuals of the sense of community, whether or not the group itself
continues. Furthermore, secondary commonalities may bring former group members together, so
that baking during the pandemic will add a topic of conversation and a layer of connectedness
between those individuals.
Craftsmanship
The pandemic was—and still is—a time of uncertainty. COVID-19 disrupted daily routines and
challenged the usual strategies for keeping oneself safe. It also threatened livelihoods and
disrupted plans for the future. It is logical, then, that one of the things people seemed to seek
during this time was a sense of their own agency and efficacy in controlling what was happening
in their lives.
Baking offered an opportunity for that. Recipes and instructions could be followed;
ingredients measured or tweaked; dough mixed and kneaded; oven times and temperatures
adjusted. All of these activities were steps in the completion of the task, and if the results were
unfavorable, the baker could then analyze where the process had failed and what needed to be
done for the next attempt to be successful.
As the pandemic lingered on, individuals developed their baking skills—through classes,
reading, watching videos, discussions in virtual groups, critiques by those consuming the final
products, and trial and error. The mastery of these skills was a matter of necessity for those who
were dependent on their baking for meals and sustenance. Others enjoyed the mastery itself; it
gave them a sense of competence and satisfaction. That mastery also tapped into the need to feel
a sense of agency, to be able to control something from start to finish, to gain the satisfaction of
successful achievement, or to experience full aesthetical engagement. Out of this mastery there
also developed higher levels of critical assessment and evaluation of the final products. While
the appreciation of quality baked goods can be seen as a sign of elitism, we suggest here that the
drive to master baking skills is more accurately interpreted as a form of craftsmanship. That
craftsmanship then fed into home baking as both comfort and community.
Craftsmanship is the mastery of skills, techniques, and tools needed to produce
something. The term is most often used when its products are considered craft rather than art.
Folklorists and other scholars have pointed out that the difference between the two is actually
intent and use, and that these frequently overlap and can shift. Art has a primarily aesthetic and
decorative function, while craft has a primarily practical and functional one (Pocius 2003, Vlach
and Bronner 1986). Objects can be made for one purpose, however, but used for another; they
can also serve both purposes simultaneously.
Home baking during the pandemic straddles this line between art and craft, challenging
what can be understood as a specifically Eurocentric, American approach to creativity and
production. As folklorist Henry Glassie points out: “Western definitions feature functions that
separate art from utility and identify it with leisure, making art the province of the rich . . . The
Turkish definition, centered existentially in performance, stresses the individual’s passionate
commitment to creation, despite differences of medium, function, and consumptions” (1999, 26).
The bakers and eaters in our research and observations viewed these home-baked products with
both a practical and aesthetic eye. They were making products that were meant to be consumed,
but they also were critiquing their shape, color, texture, and taste, aspects irrelevant to the
nutritional character of the bread or its potential to satisfy one’s hunger. On the Facebook group
Fiddle and Dough, for example, members frequently posted photographs of their productions,
pointing out successes and failures in both artistic and functional qualities. Statements such as
“It’s not pretty, but it tastes wonderful” reflect this attitude toward their baking as simultaneously
art and craft.
Discussions such as these illustrate the overlap of pragmatic function and aesthetic
pleasure that was derived from home baking. They also suggest the fluidity of the meanings of
home baking in that individuals could shift the purposes of the activity. There were times when
the appearance of the bread did not matter, as long as it was tasty or served its purpose of feeding
people. Also, individuals could choose the focus of their own baking. They could emphasize the
technical challenges of baking bread, the aesthetic appearance of that bread, the nutritional
content, or the taste as well as the social and cultural contexts surrounding it, and that emphasis
could vary with different instances of baking. Their choice of focus might reflect personal
interests, skills, available materials, circumstances, or other factors, and those choices could also
determine which groups individuals chose to join and how they wanted to participate.
Folklore scholars have written extensively about the motivations and functions of
craftsmanship (Glassie 1999; Jones 1995; Shukla 2008), and these are relevant to understanding
home baking during the pandemic. Michael Owen Jones, for example, points out that “during an
emotionally trying time, . . . one may turn to making things, finding the rhythmic motions
soothing, the texture and colors and smells of materials a pleasant distraction, the preoccupation
with ideas about form a needed diversion from personal problems, the association of the activity
with other people and another time a source of strength, the successful completion of the object a
concrete testimony to one’s ability to restore order and to accomplish something of value, and
the public’s reception of the object a reinforcement of one’s sense of self-esteem” (1995, 271).
Craftsmanship involves developing knowledge and skills in at least three areas involved
in the actual making of an object: the materials going into it, the tools or equipment needed to
execute the processes, and the techniques for using those tools on those specific materials. Each
of these areas can be seen in home baking. Some forms of baking, however, require more
specialized knowledge and skills and may take longer for individuals to master. Breads made
with yeast, whether wild or commercially produced, frequently require a certain level of
expertise, as do some other baked goods, and the craftsmanship needed to produce them was the
subject of much discussion on social media.
Knowledge of the materials for home baking translates into familiarity with the
ingredients. Different types of flours and even different brands tend to respond in their own ways
and require different techniques for preparation. Also, knowledge of which flours work with
each other and with other ingredients is needed in order to obtain the desired effect. Even the age
of the flour makes a difference to the amount of liquid needed to make a pliable dough,
something that many bakers claim can only be learned through experience and understanding the
proper feel of a sufficiently but not overly hydrated dough. The shortages of white flour in
mainstream supermarkets caused much dismay on social media and led to experimentation with
other flours or brands. Similarly, cautions about going to the supermarket meant that many
people dug into their stores of food supplies, relying on what they already had in stock. For some
home bakers that meant using flours and grains they had been saving for special occasions or for
specialized baking.
Lucy, for example, had a stash in her freezer of flours relatively unusual in mainstream
American baking: teff, chestnut, cassava, yam, rye, soy, rice, and cornmeal—as well as
miscellaneous grains and other things she frequently added to her baking—sorghum, millet,
wheat berries, rye flakes, hominy grits, hemp seed, black walnuts, and dried goji berries. For
sweetening, she had black strap molasses, sorghum molasses, cane syrup, and maple syrup. She
had flaxseed meal that worked well as a substitute for eggs, although she did have friends who
raised chickens and were sharing their eggs. She had no yeast but did have baking soda and
baking powder to use as leavening agents. She did not want to venture into the stores for milk,
but she did have several cartons of almond milk. This eclectic mixture of foodstuffs was not
mentioned in most recipes, but she started experimenting with them, trying out various
substitutions. She discovered that Irish soda bread could easily incorporate any of the flours
available, and that buttermilk could be created with vinegar added to almond milk. Cornbread
was similarly flexible, and could easily be turned into a cake with more eggs and sweeteners. She
even found a recipe for a molasses cornmeal cake made with baking soda that was reminiscent of
New England brown bread.
Necessity gave rise to this experimentation, but it was also a way to create something
from the materials on hand, giving a sense of security in the knowledge that she could create
tasty dishes from substitutions, a practice that came to be called by some people “Not this,
that.”27 Music scholars Kate Galloway and Rachael Fuller point out that such substitutions can
also be seen as improvisations, as intentionally creative productions based on a theme. In their
study of “baker-listener-performers” who recorded their sourdough starters to determine their
soundscape, they conclude, “Improvisation goes beyond music . . . It saturates our everyday
lives. It is part of our social lives and during pandemic times, it has emerged in unexpected
places” (2021, 1). Our observations of baking during the pandemic confirm that many
individuals were “improvising” with whatever materials they could find.
Similarly, the basic materials needed to leaven baked goods became a prominent subject
on social media, and those with knowledge of these rising agents oftentimes passed along their
knowledge. Sourdough starters, along with instructions for caring for them, were frequently
shared in social groups. Initially, it did not seem to be common knowledge that wild yeasts could
be “caught,” and posts began explaining how to do that.28 Those familiar with the process
seemed to revel in their knowledge as well as the public affirmation of their mastery of the
materials. A number of posts on social media sites observed with bemusement the panic over the
yeast shortage, revealing that their own craftsmanship in using other leavenings gave them a
sense of security.
Familiarity with tools and equipment are also part of craftsmanship. American kitchens
generally include an oven along with deep, rectangular pans and larger flat sheets. The common
names of these pans suggest the fundamental role of baking in American food culture: loaf pans
and cookie sheets. Discussions on social media, particularly after the pandemic was underway,
oftentimes addressed specific types of equipment, with suggestions of brands to obtain or ways
to adapt ones bakers already had. There also were instructions for matching specific pans with
particular types of bread or pastry. Cast iron frying pans, for example, were suggested for
cornbread, and covered Dutch ovens for sourdough bread.
Bakers also needed the technical skills to manipulate ingredients and tools. For those new
to the craft, skills could be acquired from in-person demonstrations, online classes, cookbooks,
baking blogs or vlogs, or instructional videos. The social media groups of which Lucy was a
member usually included a great deal of discussion on specific skills, with individuals describing
problems and others offering solutions. One obvious point from these interactions was that
baking was a hands-on activity that required experiential knowledge to master. Successful bread
bakers needed to be able to “feel” the texture of the dough when they were kneading it to know
when to stop. They also needed to be able to judge doneness by sight and smell, skills that could
be described by instructors but had to be experienced to master. An individual describes how
they approached learning the craft—and the resulting satisfaction from mastery:
One of the things I always do is I kind of set goals for myself, like I want to learn how to make
whatever, and then I make it until I figure out how to make it, if it’s something difficult. So like my
husband and I every December make macarons, French macarons and I we, we started out being
not so good at it, but, you know, we’ve gotten better at it over time. So anyway, one of the things I
wanted to figure out how to make this summer was pizza, because . . . we’ve been making a lot of
bread and things. And I’d made pizzas like a couple times in the past, but they were not highly
successful. I mean, they were fine, but not great. And so every week I’ve been making pizzas and
I’ve got it and I have cracked the code. I can make a perfect pan pizza reliably. It’s delicious. So
this is my hashtag pandemic pizza. This is one of the things that I feel is now a triumph of this time.
And I think that has definitely taken on significance because it feels very exciting to have a pizza
because we can’t you know, we’re not buying anything from out. Normally, we would have always
bought a pizza already made. So that’s taken on some significance. (S.G., Comfort Foodways Oral
History interview, Summer 2020)
The mastery of these skills and knowledge served a practical purpose in that it increased
the likelihood of achieving the desired outcomes of the labor. One individual described his
baking as a way to get certain products that he had previously only experienced during his
travels:
“I’ve started baking more . . ., including Parker House rolls and high-protein breads. One
experiment I’m working on is getting the technique correct for using the New England bun pan
from USA Pan to make the grillable buns for hot dog, lobster, and clam rolls, when those buns
are unavailable in other locations” (D.L., Comfort Foodways Oral History interview, Summer
2020).
Mastery also satisfied emotional needs in that the experience of baking itself—as well as
the eating that followed—seemed to bring comfort. The repetitiveness of kneading bread had a
meditative quality for many (Siragusa 2021), and the process of creating something delicious
arise from start to finish seemed to give a sense of efficacy: people could not do anything about
the pandemic, but they could control the baking process. The activity of baking also brought an
aesthetic engagement that fully engaged the senses and focused the mind on that engagement
(Glassie 1986; Noyes 2014), distracting it from other concerns. One individual was delighted to
find that she had the skills to be creative, mentioning that the results brought nostalgic memories
as well as aesthetic pleasure:
There’s a Jewish food noodle kugel. It’s a noodle pudding like rice pudding. But instead of rice,
you use egg noodles. It’s got all these cheeses in it and it’s really good. My husband loves it, and I
do too, and I was like, well, I don’t need a recipe. I’ll just make this, and he was so happy. It was
like, wow, we haven’t had this in months, you know. It’s like, wow, maybe we could live on this
forever. You know, certainly as a kid, I grew up on it, you know, especially in the winter, having
it once or twice a week, and it was a really nice welcome back to it. (H.G.S., Comfort Foodways
Oral History interview, Summer 2020)
Developing skills in baking also fed into community. As individuals sought and offered
information on the craft, they interacted, getting to know each other as well as shaping the
identity of the larger group. Some groups, both virtual and real-life, seemed to focus on
craftsmanship, while others emphasized the sociality, but in both cases, there was the potential
for a community of insiders who now shared knowledge and experiences. An indication of the
solidity of the group was the use of a common “work language,” or vocabulary specific to the
craft (McCarl 1986). This “jargon” referred to details of ingredients, tools, or technical skills
involved in baking and was developed in order to communicate effectively about the processes
and results. Its use demonstrated that individuals were part of the same reference group, of a folk
group (Ben-Amos 1971). The nuances of coloration, form, texture, and flavor could be the
source of endless conversations. Specialized vocabulary could also be used to signal membership
in a group or hierarchies of mastery, as occurred in the example given earlier of the “poolish”
comment in response to the joke about “biga.”
Craftsmanship in baking could be interpreted as a sign of elitism and privilege. Artisanal
breads and pastries in the US tend to carry those connotations. After all, time and material
resources are necessary in order to develop those skills. Also, the attention to the aesthetics of the
process as well as the appreciation of the sense of mastery gained from it do not seem to be part
of the historical role of home baking as a functional, domestic chore. The rise of this
craftsmanship, however, can also be seen as a vernacular response to the pandemic. This was not
something suggested by policy makers or the medical establishment; it grew instead out of
individuals’ interests and needs as well as the public shortages and disruptions in the food
system. It was a way for people to adapt, individually and collectively, to the circumstances. It
arose organically through social media and social networks, borrowing at times from official
“authorities,” such as cookbooks or chef’s instructional videos but, as individuals acquired more
skills, the role of expert was passed around and shared. Hierarchies within the groups existed but
seemed to be based on merit as well as an individual’s willingness to be helpful in their critiques.
It could be argued that the pandemic fostered a democratizing of baking craftsmanship in that it
now seemed to be available to all—an apprenticeship in France or Italy, while still admirable,
was not necessary to become a master. This vernacular craftsmanship, then, challenges the food
industry’s hold on baking in the US, while at the same time suppliers of baking ingredients have
become more active in promoting and enabling at-home baking (Byron 2021).
[insert fig. 3.3]
Figure 3.3. “Pandemic loaf” (sourdough boule), made by Theresa Vaughan in
April 2020.
Not everyone who baked emphasized craftsmanship; for some, baking was an onerous
obligation. Also, not everyone who appreciated the craftsmanship actually participated in baking.
Eaters—and sometimes viewers—of the baked goods were part of the community of bakers as
recipients of their labor. Some became more knowledgeable about baking through their
consumption, and more adept at evaluating quality. They learned to detect nuances determined
by differences in ingredients, tools, or techniques. They also frequently were exposed to a wider
variety of baked products than previously. Their responses to a product could be taken as literal
feedback to enable further development of craftsmanship. This perhaps challenges the
assumptions about mainstream American food culture being made up of undiscriminating eaters
who emphasize quantity and expense over quality and craftsmanship. Perhaps the pandemic is
causing many more of us to become “foodies,” making that the norm rather than what is usually
perceived by cultural observers as an aberration.
Craftsmanship in vernacular baking is integrated with the other two themes we noticed,
those of comfort and community. Mastery of skills and knowledge brought a sense of control,
agency, and efficacy that was comforting on a psychological level. Many individuals also found
communities in the process of gaining that mastery and then sharing it with others. This
overlapping of these domains is a reflection of the complexity of lived realities that modern life
has disguised. We tend to think of cooking and eating as separate from the initial growing of
food, processing, and distribution of it. Similarly, we tend to think of our food choices as being
up to the individual and separate from other aspects of life. Vernacular baking shows that these
domains are all intermingled, that we as individuals are interconnected.
Conclusion
Home baking during the pandemic was a vernacular response to the events, conditions, and
concerns created by the spread of the COVID-19 virus. While it served a practical function in
providing food for sustenance, it also fulfilled a diverse range of needs—for comfort,
community, and craftsmanship. While each of these needs was addressed at times by “official”
culture (governmental groups, civic organizations, mass media), the emergence of vernacular
practices oftentimes reflected an interplay with—and sometimes a challenge of—that official
culture. Cookbooks, chefs, nutritional experts, and other food “pundits” seemed to be sources for
inspiration, experimentation, and perhaps guidance, rather than the “final say” for evaluating
quality and meaning.
For example, home baking was tied directly to the concept of comfort food, a category
reflecting mainstream American moralities around food and eating that emphasize the impact of
foods on physical appearance and health. The embracing of home baking and of home-baked
goods, however, challenged that morality, asserting both that foods could be evaluated for
reasons beyond their connection to body weight and that individuals who enjoyed such foods
should not be shamed. Similarly, the idea of comfort food had been co-opted by the American
food industry as a marketing category for certain dishes and cuisines, offering a definition that
emphasized large quantities of salt, sugar, carbohydrates, and fats. The vernacular response
allowed for each individual to find comfort in whichever foods “worked” for them. This
“culinary relativism,” as Lucy has called this elsewhere (Long, et al 2021), acknowledges that
individuals have different memories attached to foods as well as different tastes, circumstances,
and values that shape which foods are comforting to them. The vernacular response also meant
that people could seek comfort from the processes and socializing around baking, not just the
consumption of baked products. This shift from product to process could perhaps be seen as a
challenge to the more usual consumerist ethos of mainstream American culture. While this turn
to using home baking for comfort seemed initially to be a response to the food media’s
suggestions for ways to deal with the pandemic, it quickly was personalized and localized.
Vernacular responses can also be seen in the development of new communities around
home baking as well as the re-envisioning or affirmation of previously established communities,
particularly on social media. These groups shared skills and knowledge specific to baking, but
they were also significant mediums for socializing and assuaging the isolation that many
experienced during the pandemic. Perhaps because they were perceived as temporary and
innovative, they tended to flexible and dynamic. Their different emphases allowed for varying
interests, skills, personalities, and even values. For example, some groups focused on specific
types of baking—sourdough, rye, bread in general, or any kind of pastries or desserts. The
groups also took different approaches to the subject, with some emphasizing technical skills,
others the sharing of recipes, and still others discussions of adaptations for health issues. This
variety allowed individuals to find groups with which they felt compatible, increasing the
likelihood that the group would develop into a community. This also allowed for communities to
develop within larger groupings, making the smaller ones more expressive of specific localities
and personalities.
These vernacular communities brought attention to individuals who might have been
previously overlooked, allowing them to emerge as knowledge holders and authorities in the
domain of home baking. For example, grandmothers and housewives became sources for
information alongside, and perhaps replacing, trained nutritionists and professional chefs. The
usual hierarchies of authority shifted through these groups, celebrating the value of lived
experience and perhaps encouraging a democratization of roles.29
Similarly, the craftsmanship that developed around home baking was open to any
individual who had the resources and interests.30 The idea that anyone can master such skills
without going through official culinary training challenges some of the popular perceptions of
baking and of art in general. While inborn talent is recognized, the trends during the pandemic
suggested that crafts can be learned through vernacular avenues, through imitative, hands-on
experiences outside of formal institutions and from community members who are considered
masters of those skills. Furthermore, those trends also challenge the division between producers
and consumers that tends to characterize our modern industrial-based society, demonstrating the
interplay of those domains of activity. Baking offered an opportunity to follow a product from
start to finish, giving a sense of connection between one’s labor and the food eaten that is
oftentimes not a part of contemporary eating.
A final pair of questions is why baking, and why bread? It is possible that Americans
turned to them because of nostalgia around the foundational role of bread and other baked goods
in historical and contemporary foodways, particularly in the idealized childhood and family life
of the 1950s. As a staple of many everyday meals as well as an item frequently incorporated into
celebratory and festive meals, bread offers continuity with a pre-COVID past. Those memories
then gave hope for the future as well as comfort in the present (Sutton 2001). It is also possible
that the symbolic meanings of bread as spiritual nourishment31 spoke to people during this time
of uncertainty and social isolation. Our own experiences, though, suggest that there is something
about these objects and practices that makes them rich for expressive uses. Their very materiality
engages all the senses, and the tangible nature of their preparation is “grounding” in a
psychological sense. The physical efforts involved in kneading bread, rolling out pie crusts, or
mixing cookie dough offer an interplay of physical and mental effort that is rewarding in itself.
Also, the smelling, tasting, and eating of these foods brings together the individual and the
community of others who supplied knowledge, encouragement, or even ingredients, making
tangible the realities of those connections.
Home baking, as seen through the lenses of comfort, community, and craftsmanship,
offers us an instructive and complex example of the resilience of vernacular culture. Vernacular
culture has always been a framework within which individuals act, make meaning, and satisfy
needs for aesthetic expression. By focusing on home baking, we have demonstrated that, despite
the prevalence of various forms of media and the increased availability of expert instruction and
information via the internet, robust vernacular expressions continue to arise in response to
changing needs, both in the routines of daily life and in crises such as the COVID-19 pandemic.
Notes
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Lucy borrows the word coroniverse from a friend and mental health activist, Christen Giblin, who used it in a
hometown newspaper, the Sentinel Tribune, in Bowling Green, Ohio. In her essay on “What have you learned
in the coroniverse?” she states: “Yes, I did just coin a term to express how the coronavirus has transformed our
entire world. At the same time it has changed each of our personal spheres, demanding adjustments and new
behaviors.” July 23, 2020 (https://www.sent-trib.com/community/what-have-you-learned-in-the-
coroniverse/article_5db3dd42-cce3-11ea-88b2-b3aa561ac99a.html). Folklore scholars will appreciate the word
in the way it evokes the sense of liminality prevalent during this time.
2 Numerous journalists, cultural observers, and scholars from a wide variety of disciplines have noticed the rise of
baking in the US and other nations during the pandemic. Not surprisingly, some of these share interpretations
and conclusions similar to parts of our own work. We have tried to include citations for that scholarship
throughout the chapter, but several that are closely aligned with our own folkloristic approach are Easterbrook-
Smith 2020; Ocklenburg 2020; Siragusa 2021; and Sofo et al. 2021.
3 See Severson and Moskin 2020 for a newspaper report on these concerns in March 2020 at the beginning of the
pandemic in the US.
4 Data is drawn from several sources. Our personal experiences are offered as auto-ethnographic accounts of the
pandemic in the US, since we also were experiencing it. We recognize that our experiences are not necessarily
representative of the living conditions and attitudes of other regions of the US. We are living in university
towns, Lucy in Ohio and Theresa in Oklahoma, where the effects of the pandemic have been relatively
restrained. Both of us are white, educated, middle class, and in established family and community social
networks, so that we have a certain amount or privilege in not needing to worry about food security or economic
stability. Both of us participated in social media and virtual groups that interacted around baking, and we both
observed trends on various platforms and within our social universes. Also used are responses to a virtual oral
history project on finding comfort/discomfort through foodways, directed by Lucy in the summer and fall of
2020 (Comfort Foodways Oral History), primarily in the US but also in six other countries (see
www.foodandculture.org). Run through the nonprofit Center for Food and Culture, over sixty interviews were
conducted by five graduate students. For further description of the project, see Long et al. 2021.
5 Often used to refer to material culture, the precise definition of vernacular changes somewhat from scholar to
scholar and discipline to discipline. All uses, however, emphasize individual lives and works as lived; as such,
they offer a more complete view of human creative endeavors than those that focus on the elite, or that relegate
the “folk” to the rural, the unschooled, or the simple. Henry Glassie, for example, used the term in studying
regional styles of architecture, focusing on buildings by those who had acquired housebuilding housebuilding
skills through use of local materials and modular patterns of building design: “The term [vernacular] . . . marks
the transition from the unknown to the known: we call buildings ‘vernacular’ because they embody values alien
to those cherished in the academy. When we call buildings ‘folk,’ the implication was that they countered in
commonness and tradition the pretense and progress that dominate simple academic schemes. Folk buildings
contained a different virtue. The study of vernacular architecture, through its urge toward the comprehensive,
accommodates cultural diversity. It welcomes the neglected into study in order to acknowledge the reality of
difference and conflict” (1999, 230). For a more recent use of vernacular, see Diarmuid Ó Giolláin 2013.
6 The issue of privilege around baking was noted by other scholars and cultural observers, with some examining the
racial disparities it represented. For example, see McCaugherty 2020; Mohabeer 2023; Somani 2021. I also
discuss issues of privilege in reference to comfort food during the pandemic (Long et al. 2021; Long 2022).
7 The phrase was originally introduced to the public by a psychologist, Dr. Joyce Brothers, who heard it from clients
as an explanation for their eating habits. She then used it to explain the obesity epidemic of the 1960s, but in
recent years, the food industry has turned comfort food into a marketing category. That category includes
commercially and heavily processed snack foods and calorie-laden desserts as well as dishes from certain food
cultures—midwestern, southern, soul, and Jewish—that tend to emphasize large serving portions, frying
(particularly deep frying), and quantities of salt, sugar, and fats that exceed the nutritionist-recommended
amounts.
8 Recent work by humanities scholars has suggested additional needs, such as connectedness, efficacy, meaning,
distraction, agency/control, and structure (Jones and Long 2017; Shen et al. 2020; Long et al. 2021). For
overviews of the scholarship on comfort food, see Jones and Long 2017; and Spence 2017.
9 Gwen Easterbrook-Smith makes a similar point in an article in which she discusses bread baking during the
pandemic as fulfilling three functions: “providing sustenance; filling newly available leisure time; and offering
a way to demonstrate one’s skill and activities on social media” (2021, 36).
10 For more on food and embodiment, see Heldke 1992 and Sutton 2010. Also, scholarship by folklorists addresses
the full engagement of the senses that occurs with aesthetic experiences (Pocius 2003).
11 In fact, sensory pleasure and comfort were very much a part of pandemic baking. In a survey of New Zealanders
(3,028 respondents, mostly female) by a team working in public health, the researchers expected to find an
increase in healthy eating habits, focusing on fresh produce, as a means to mitigate COVID morbidity. Instead,
they found a 41% increase in the consumption of sweet snacks, a 33% increase in the consumption of both salty
snacks and alcohol, and a 20% increase in the consumption of sugary drinks (Gerritsen et al. 2021).
12 Nostalgia has been critiqued by many cultural scholars as a response to modernity and industrialization; however,
folklore and other scholars have recently reevaluated it as a dynamic lens through which communities compare
and define both their past and present. See Cashman 2006 for an overview of the scholarship and an illustration
of this approach.
13 The usage of “proper” here refers to the Mary Douglas’s work (1972) on implicit social meanings of food and
her discussion of what constitutes meals in British food culture.
14 Bread is also a major staple food anywhere that wheat was grown as an early domesticated grain—in North
Africa, West Asia, and Central Asia in addition to Europe. For an early influential study of the significance of
bread, see Counihan 1984. Other materials—vegetables, grains, seeds, tubers, nuts—were also used to make
baked foods throughout the world. The American usage of “bread” implies the norm of yeast breads made from
wheat, frequently commercially made and store-bought. Other varieties and sources are usually clarified by
grain (e.g., cornbread, rye bread) or rising agent (e.g., sourdough bread, soda bread) and also as bakery or
home-produced.
15 For more specifics on class and gender issues around work during the pandemic, see the study released by the
Pew Foundation on Dec. 9, 2020 on “How the Coronavirus Outbreak Has and Hasn’t Changed the Way
Americans Work.” https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2020/12/09/how-the-coronavirus-outbreak-has-
and-hasnt-changed-the-way-americans-work/.
16 Lucy conducted interviews with individuals in northwest Ohio about how their living situations affected their
ability to find comfort through foodways. Not surprisingly, those who were sharing small kitchen spaces with
others tended to find it less convenient to prepare baked goods, even though they were working at home and had
the time to do so. See Long, et al, 2021.
17 Louise O. Vasvári (2018) uses this phrase in her discussion of food memories among Jewish Hungarian survivors
of the Holocaust.
18 Examples include the listservs and Facebook pages of two scholarly associations of which the authors are
members, the American Folklore Society and the Association for the Study of Food and Society. The New York
Times food section also began featuring recipes for comfort foods from individual chefs who came from diverse
backgrounds.
19 Human Relations Area Files. “Craving comfort: bonding with food across cultures.“
https://hraf.yale.edu/craving-comfort-bonding-with-food-across-cultures/.
20 See, for example, work by sociologist Alice Julier (2013).
21 See, for example, Siragusa 2021.
22 One example, “Rye Revival,” based in Madison, Wisconsin, “supports the expansion of ecological rye
production; educates about rye for human, animal, and agricultural purposes; advances research on rye; and
centers these efforts on the promotion of food equity, good food, and cultural heritage”
(https://www.facebook.com/ryerevival.org/). The fledgling organization uses a variety of social media as well
as socially distanced personal communication to promote the baking and consuming of rye bread to support rye
production and preservation. The group was not developed specifically as a response to COVID-19, but during
the pandemic, its in-person group activities had to be put on hold. It moved to Zoom meetings, which actually
meant that it could cast a wider geographic net, attracting more members. Also, the leader had to travel for
family reasons during the pandemic and took rye bread to people for tastings during these trips. Lucy was the
fortunate recipient of some of these loaves and then shared them with a local group of friends that enjoyed
tasting new foods. While this loose network of rye eaters would not be considered a folk group, it did broaden
the rye “community” of those who appreciated the bread.
23 Facebook “communities” often have limited membership and can be moderated so that rules around subject
matter and interactions can be enforced. This is different from Twitter, which is much more public and
anonymous. Does Facebook, therefore, better mimic the actual structure of social relationships than do some
other social media platforms? The same is true of Zoom meetings, which are invitation-only.
24 It is evident now that, while the virus itself jumps across various social divides specific populations are more
vulnerable, particularly regarding the availability of high-quality medical care. The number of cases and deaths
within Black and Native American communities has been much higher than among Whites, bringing attention
to how race, ethnicity, and class are still factors in quality of life the US (Smith 2020; McLernon 2021).
25 One individual participating in the oral history on comfort/discomfort foods pointed out that the shortages of
yeast and flour affected only a part of the American population and also tended to be seen primarily in the
industrial food system and mainstream food culture. “Ethnic” groceries did not have shortages, even of items
like flour (H.G.S., Comfort Foodways Oral History, Summer 2020).
26 There is evidence that after 2 years into the pandemic, interest in virtual baking groups faded. Part of that is due
to “Zoom fatigue,” exhaustion from sitting in front of a computer, but other factors were also at play, such as
people going back to work outside the home and having more face-to-face interactions. Some posts on social
media attribute fading interest to the weight gain resulting from so much baking.
27 Thanks to Diane Goldstein for pointing out this phrase. She recounts how a hostess gift was “not this, that” bags
filled with newly discovered products and recipes created by forced substitutions due to the pandemic.
28 One group that emerged on Facebook is the Sourdough Bread Support Group, which developed a web page
giving directions for how to make a wild starter: https://sourdoughbreadsupportgroup.com/making-a-
sourdough-starter/. This is just a single example of many.
29 We recognize that there is a paradox here. If we are looking primarily at communities mediated through social
media, Zoom, or other forms of electronic facilitation—which we tend to think of as anonymizing—we can
return to a more “traditional” style of learning from family or friends rather than through the Food Network,
celebrity chefs, or other institutions that teach culinary skills. Social media itself is simultaneously supportive of
“expert” teaching and democratizing, because individual voices can still be heard. Popular culture scholar
Henry Jenkins (2008) describes this paradox as characteristic of the “convergence culture” resulting from the
emergence of new media that allows viewers to participate in the creation of productions and encourages them
to find connections between various media products.
30 Resources are obviously shaped by sociocultural and historical factors that reflect racial, class, and gender
inequalities. Demographic studies of who exactly was involved in home baking during the pandemic is needed.
See, for example, Faludi and Crosby 2021. Geographic location, urban or rural, and type of living
circumstances also impact individuals’ abilities to follow their interests.
31 Bread plays a significant role in religious rituals in Christian cultures, metaphorically—and for some literally—
standing in for the body of Christ during Communion services. It is significant in a broader cultural sense,
however, as implied when bread is referred to as the “staff of life,” the higher wage earner in a family is called
the “breadwinner,” or when people refer to a job that is not their first choice as what they do for their “bread
and butter.” For more on bread’s symbolism from a global perspective, see Lewis 2017 and Matvejević 2020.
