Our Six-Week, COVID-19 Baking Crisis

Item

Title (Dublin Core)

Description (Dublin Core)

My wife and I were both home from our jobs by mid-March because the COVID-19 pandemic had, for all effective purposes, practically shut down our home state of Alabama. During our long sequestration from the world, we often baked together to pass the time. Tamsie has a sourdough bread starter that was handed down from her grandmother, so to keep the starter “alive”, she has to bake bread every month or so, which of course requires yeast. I believe that millions of Americans were at home baking during that time because we were out of dry yeast for her bread and, though we searched every grocery within a 20-mile radius of our home, we looked to no avail; additionally, yeast was back-ordered on Amazon, Walmart online, and every other online store. We were beyond desperate for that yeast, and the starter had to be near death when, at long last, I discovered an in-stock yeast on Amazon and ordered six pounds of it. Needless to say, I ordered entirely too much and thus unintentionally became that obligatory hoarder with which we’ve all had to deal during the last seven months. Thus, we had to bake dozens of loaves of sourdough bread to use that yeast!

My wife is a dentist, so we baked bread for all her employees and left it on both their front porches and garages. We also baked for our neighbors and our families. The sweet smells of sourdough bread and sticky buns filled our home for nearly six weeks, as baking became an inane, daily ritual in the Rogers household! Today, whenever I smell fresh bread or cinnamon rolls, I think of our time spent together with our puppies in the kitchen, laboriously prepping, waiting for the yeast to rise, baking, and cleaning on a daily basis. I am thankful for this time, and though we now laugh about and much fun is had at my expense over my overzealous yeast spending-spree, whenever I smell fresh bread, I will forever be transported to our happy kitchen along with its aromatic sights and smells during the early weeks of the pandemic. It is truly amazing to ponder what we take for granted in our daily walks, and though I am obviously glad we are standing on firmer ground than in spring in relation to COVID-19, I miss our time together in the kitchen, which seems lonely and destitute without the sweet aroma of fresh sourdough bread.

My association with this simple, yet happy memory during the pandemic is reflective of the joys we should be seeking in small things. Our daily lives are measured by our relationships, our serenity and contentment, and the joy we both provide and glean from others. The extended time at home with Tamsie allowed us a “factory reset” of sorts in our lives, one that brought our already-happy marriage much closer together; consequently, we no longer take life’s simple, quiet moments for granted. In some ways, the lasting human effects of the pandemic on relationships have been positive, in that each of us has had ample time to again focus on those whom we love.

Date (Dublin Core)

October 12, 2020 09:40

Creator (Dublin Core)

Troy Rogers

Contributor (Dublin Core)

Troy Rogers

Event Identifier (Dublin Core)

HST643

Partner (Dublin Core)

Arizona State University

Type (Dublin Core)

Photograph

Controlled Vocabulary (Dublin Core)

English Home & Family Life

English Food & Drink

English Labor

English Neighborhoods

English Emotion

Curator's Tags (Omeka Classic)

sourdough

baking

yeast

sensory history

smell

bread

aroma

shortage

relationship

neighbor

love

Contributor's Tags (a true folksonomy) (Friend of a Friend)

sourdough

pandemic

kitchen

yeast

starter

love

togetherness

solitude

Collection (Dublin Core)

Foodways

Linked Data (Dublin Core)

Sensory history contribution to COVID-19 Archive

Date Submitted (Dublin Core)

10/02/2020

Date Modified (Dublin Core)

02/03/2021

02/21/2022

Item sets

Covid 19

Arizona State University

This item was submitted on October 12, 2020 by Troy Rogers using the form “Share Your Story” on the site “A Journal of the Plague Year”: https://www.covid-19archive.org/s/archive

Click here to view the collected data.

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