Cates Holderness has prepared his first loaf with a simple mug. “I saw this advertisement on my newsfeed in Tumblr, which explained how to prepare the bread with just four ingredients, a cup, a bowl and an oven. I had all that stuff, so I said to myself: why not?”, remembers the American, today a senior analyst of trends for, precisely, the social network Tumblr. “Honestly, it was a great experience. I had prepared something that humanity has always cooked. I had made bread.”
As she, for years, a group of internet users are very motivated and dissects the secrets behind the production of the beautiful loaf or baguette appetizing. This movement came to the United States – no offense to the French purists – is composed of a galaxy of blogs, YouTube channels, pages, Tumblr account and Instagram. All share the same obsession: to make her own bread. Creating, by the way, a real online community, as seen by many of its members as a refuge against the pressure of the social networks today.
“It’s almost magical”
The kitchen has always been a trend on the Internet. The contents dedicated to the bread, however, are a universe apart. Perhaps, already, because it is common to many cultures in the world. We did and we eat the bread in France, the United States, and Japan, via Vietnam and Chile. “In the end, we all have a connection with the bread, in one way or another,” says Maurizio Leo, author of the very popular blog The Perfect Loaf (“bread perfect” in French). “It may be a childhood memory, the eating of the bread family, or maybe that one was marked by a loaf of bread particular, in a bakery or in a restaurant. Everyone is interested in the bread.” Regularly, the social networks are passionate unanimously to stories of bakery. As the american entrepreneur who, this summer, has made a bread with yeast and old of 4000 years, from a rest of a loaf of bread dating back to ancient Egypt.
On the Internet, the community of the bread counts its own stars, as ThePerfectLoaf (81.000 followers on Instagram), Sourdough_nouveau (50.000 subscribers on Instagram) or sourdough_mania (72.000 followers on Instagram). Bakers, professional or amateur, they generally specialize in the manufacture of “sourdough”, that is to say, natural-yeast bread, unlike bread using yeast industrial. A click on the hashtag #sourdough on Instagram (more than 2 million publications to this day), on Tumblr (of which about 500,000 users to interact or post content on the bread), on Twitter or on Reddit (the subreddit /Breadit/ account to this day more than 200,000 members), you will have to scroll through hundreds of photos of beautiful balls of bread, or loaves, cut in half, any crumb outside. Or even, sometimes, to the bottles containing the precious leaven (“sourdough starter”, in English) necessary for the preparation of bread. Some even give a small name.
“Seth has used his leaven (it is called Bernadette) to make breads with cinnamon!!!!!”
Because if the bread obsessed with the internet, it is also because it is difficult to cook. It is necessary to prepare the sourdough, the rest, feed it, let it rest again. Prepare the dough, let it rest, fold. This is about as much cooking as chemistry. Cooking is another complex step: I need to use a bread machine? A casserole? The recipes, techniques, and debates are raging in the community of sourdough. It publishes photos of its leaven in order to compare it to that of others. Is there enough bubbles? Last-t-he several years? One hesitates on the need to knead, or not, the bread. We ask council, and it is obtained very easily. You win sometimes even a new professional vocation. In may, Europe 1 was interviewing a baker frenchman who has abandoned his former life of business leader in the video games, after watching hours of tutorials to learn how to make bread on YouTube.
“The community of the bread line stands out for its camaraderie. There is a real willingness for mutual assistance, the experts help the beginners, while the world is progressing at the same time,” explains the blogger belgian cuisine Owi Owi Whips me, who has devoted many articles to this topic on his site. “To transform a pile of flour, water and yeast in a loaf of crusty, this is something incredible. Making bread is almost like magic.”
Pressure of social networks
The community of the bread is often described by its members as an online space that’s serene, away from the abuse of social networks. In this sense, she follows in the footsteps of the recent phenomenon of the “Internet happy” (“Wholesome Internet”, in English), where users exchange only contained positive and encouraging, to forget their woes and difficulties of the world today.
“a Lot of people feel pressure to put himself in the scene on the Internet. It is important to take the selfie with the right angle, the right filter, this kind of things. Here, it is enough to take a photo of his bread,” says Cates Holderness, who, since the episode of the mug, has launched her own blog dedicated to her tests in the bakery. “Whatever happens, that your bread is successful, it is burned, whether it is pretty or a little missed, people are going to respond.” A simple publication titled “today I made bread for the first time!” can easily harvest thousands of “likes” or comments.
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This good atmosphere did not prevent a certain taste for the stage. Users combine willingly the bakery amateure to aesthetic popular on the Internet, as the cottagecore, people (generally living in environments that are very urban) who fantasize about living on a farm in the countryside. Finally, others see it as a way to de the policy, as well as the kitchen. “Today I made bread, I wandered in the woods and I did not have to do anything if it does not meet the standards of productivity in a capitalist society,” says a user on Tumblr. It is common that users also discuss ecology, DIY (for “Do It Yourself”, people who advocate the recycling and the manufacture of its objects) or food self-sufficiency. The community of the bread line looks like the one dedicated to knitting, which, between the two publications of the patrons of hat, or sweater, do not hesitate to have discussions that are very political.
to Make bread, and share it online, is an activity that is, in the end, very well the dilemma of the young internet users today, anxious by the social networks, but also to the search for the sense of community that these platforms can bring them. “There is something valuable in regaining control over an activity as old as the world thanks to the Internet, but also to discover a new way to disconnect and take time for yourself,” says Cates Holderness.
“See the bread on the social networks, it is pleasant for everyone,” adds the blogger Owi Owi Whips me. “It is very easy to project on this kind of pictures. We all know the smell of bread, the crispness of its crust, the softness of her belly…,” Whether in front of a smartphone or the door of his oven, the happiness has the same smell of hot bread.
