Bake News!
Historians will note that during the first two decades of the twenty-first century, no biomolecule consisting of carbon, hydrogen and oxygen atoms was more relentlessly mailgned than the once mighty carbohydrate. But then, faced with a pandemic we could barely process, humans returned to their pantries in search of processed grains. Almost overnight, America’s carb footprint expanded dramatically, and nowhere was that rise more evident than on the lightly dusted customer service phone at King Arthur Flour, where employees sifted through calls by the thousands. This gluten went to eleven. To be sure, there was dough to be made, but this aerate drill was about something more: a national knead. “Partly it was an increase in the sheer number of calls, a jump that seemed more sudden and pronounced than the normal mild pre-Easter build-up. But even stranger was how many of the callers seemed, well, clueless. How do you tell if bread is done? Do I really need yeast? And strangest of all: What can I use instead of flour?” Marker takes you to the proofing grounds: Inside the Flour Company Supplying America’s Sudden Baking Obsession. “During a crisis there are a lot of problems to solve, and you won’t be able to solve them all. We decided the one we had to solve was how to get more all-purpose flour to consumers.” Indeed, it was the yeast they could do.