Celebrating World Baking Day in Times of Hardship

May 17 is World Baking Day, a day of celebration honoring delicious creations that have been present for all the special events in our lives, as well as our private moments of indulgence, and have become a constant, reliable source nourishment going back millennia.

Falling every year on the third Sunday of May, World Baking Day is an occasion to get people baking for their loved ones, friends, and neighbors, as a show of appreciation and gratitude.

This year, in particular, there is a lot more to be celebrated, and a lot more to be grateful for. Since the health emergency caused by the COVID-19 pandemic began to have a significant impact on our work and our daily lives, people started to realize just what an important part of their world baking is.

The closure of foodservice outlets has put enormous pressure on professional bakers who witnessed one of their main business channels disappearing, which resulted in stocks that couldn’t be sold, and market demand that couldn’t be met.

But when the times were toughest, they endured.

Bakers stood their ground, they adapted their product ranges, they made cutbacks, they reinvented their businesses online, they kept close to their communities, and they were always there, providing the comfort food that all of us needed during these tough times.

Governments around the world recognized bakers and the whole food industry as key-workers and praised them as “hidden heroes”, keeping countries running during the crisis; special measures were taken to ensure the continued activity of the entire supply chain in order to maintain adequate production of this favorite staple food product.

And as people across the globe were trying to keep busy indoors throughout weeks-long lockdown restrictions, many turned to home baking as a fun family activity or as a newly found hobby. The unexpected hordes of amateur bakers quickly overwhelmed the flour supplies, causing shortages in local supermarkets. The industry scrambled to respond to this soaring demand in a remarkable way.

One noteworthy example is that of a 1,000-year-old water mill in southwest England that had been decommissioned for years, which has resumed commercial production to meet the unprecedented demand.

The Sturminster Newton Mill, in Dorset, was operated through the plague in the 17th century and the 1918 Spanish flu but had since been turned into a tourist attraction.

Now it was brought back to life in order to help local bakeries keep bread on the shelves.

The joy of baking lies in producing something tangible amid a pandemic in which so many things, from socializing to school, have shifted online.

Baking in times of anxiety or uncertainty is not something new, and the American Psychiatric Association has seen a strong correlation between the continuous rise in reported anxiety since 2016 and therapeutic baking.

Some studies show that baking is connected to positive feelings. Psychologists have been exploring cooking and baking as a tool to help people dealing with things like depression and anxiety, and a 2016 study, published in the Journal of Positive Psychology, suggests that people who frequently perform small, creative projects report feeling more relaxed and happier.

“Baking is mindful. Mindfulness means paying attention to yourself in the moment and not being in the past or the future, but really being there,” says Philip Muskin, a Columbia University psychiatry professor and the secretary of the American Psychiatry Association.

So while it’s true that the COVID-19 pandemic has put us all through a rough passage, it has also given us a chance to appreciate the dedication and the resilience of those who work to put bread on our table; to quiet our minds and to push away negative feelings; to pride ourselves with our homemade doughs and to cherish our newly-found love for baking.

And because of that, there has truly never been a better time to celebrate World Baking Day than it is right now.