To say quarantine has been a peculiar time would be an understatement, and that’s without the looming threat of COVID-19 transmission. When you force social animals to stay home, weird things start happening. Among those things, a certain phenomenon stands out: quarantine baking. Baking has always been around, I guess. Some of my friends do it occasionally, but as soon as the lockdown was announced, my timeline content shifted from rising death tolls and general existential dread to a flood of pictures of pastries. Where did the “COVID WARNING” tweets go? Were they hiding behind pictures of banana bread? To someone who has baked a total of zero times in their life, the baking craze seemed very surreal. At one point, I felt like I was doing something wrong by not baking.
But, why baking?
With the newly abundant free time, people have a million hobbies to pick up. But baking, as a hobby, has a very unique charm. It is, in my humble opinion, the most fulfilling form of creativity. The reward of the effort spent is tangible. A painter can’t do anything with their painting other than look at it. A baker, however, consumes their creation, enjoys every aspect of it. Eating your own baked goods is a very sensual experience. Also, you’re probably very hungry after hours of slaving away in the kitchen. The least you could do is get some food out of it. The process itself is also almost magical, as a few ingredients become something delicious. But, it’s not as if all of this didn’t apply before the pandemic. How does one explain the scale at which baking became widespread, to the point where stores were running out of flour and baking soda?
Well, first of all, we’re all stressed. While we’ve had our fair share of stressors before the pandemic outburst, it was relatively easier to cope when life was somewhat normal. After the revolution, most people reluctantly returned to their routines, which were a temporary distraction from the fact that the country was falling into ruin. But in quarantine, it’s just you and your kitchen, buddy. Luckily, studies have shown that baking can be an effective coping mechanism. Channeling your stress into something productive is very healthy. Baking takes a lot of focus and a few hours to do, which is an opportunity to take a break from everything that’s happening and just recover. Baking is very akin to meditation, and if you’d rather have some brownies than reach a deeper sense of self, then, by all means. Self-care for mental health is extremely important during these times, and people could easily resort to baking to do so.
However, the quarantine baking craze has many layers. One of the more interesting things about it is that it came, like corona, in waves. It’s certainly no coincidence that everyone was making whipped coffee, then cinnamon rolls, then banana bread at the same time. The driving force behind this is, of course, social media. Fear not, this isn’t one of those “Social Media is the Devil” articles. But, there’s no denying that social media holds a lot of influence over people’s behavior under normal circumstances, let alone when our entire lives got digitized due to quarantine. Many people have addressed this, but it’s insane how competitive quarantine became. Even with the capitalist society halted, we still managed to make a period of global pandemic a productivity contest. This, of course, applies to baking. While this may be a push for people to bake, and, most importantly, post their creations online, it also made an otherwise wholesome task extremely stressful. Many people weren’t immune to putting themselves down because their cinnamon rolls failed while others’ didn’t. Mimicking life, baking became a cycle of “I can do it, and I can do it better, and if I don’t, I’ll feel bad about it.”
The pressure surrounding baking is very unfortunate, in my opinion, and it takes away from the most important thing baking has to offer during quarantine: a sense of communion. Baking has been proven to be a very effective way to communicate one’s feelings. Considering that many problems may arise due to distance and inadequate communication, baking fills a very important role, and it does it in a unique way. Baking for someone is so intimate. You’re showing someone you spent time and effort making something for them. It’s full of love, and it says so much in a time where ignoring a text message could be interpreted as giving up on a friendship. It’s an opportunity for families to spend time together. It’s an amazing way to share love from a distance. A Tupperware placed in the elevator of a friend’s apartment complex is as “social distancing” as it gets. It certainly doesn’t replace spending time together, but it makes being apart easier.
Not everyone bakes for the same reason. Just as not everyone isn’t experiencing quarantine the same. Whether you feel like you need to destress or overachieve, whether you miss your friends or you’re just hungry, baking resonates with every person stuck at home because of the pandemic threat.
