It's bananas
COVID-19 has created many kinds of new customs. How we greet, what we share (or don’t share) and undoubtedly why we cook and eat.
Over the past month, my Instagram feed has been filled with banana bread. Freshly baked cookies are also trending. Every so often, homemade sourdough bread makes an honorable appearance.
In the US, King Arthur reported that they were sold out of yeast and a certain kind of flour. In Amsterdam, I had a hard time finding regular all-purpose flour for myself.
In odd times, it appears that people seek warmth and comfort from the oven.
This reminds me of when I first moved to New York, 14 years ago.
I was jobless and gambling on new love. The experience was exciting and isolating.
I took refuge in cooking. I organized my day around meals.
Planning what to cook, where to source ingredients, and how to stretch the dough, literally and metaphorically, gave me joy.
I fell in love with the whole process. I went from not knowing how to cook rice to feeding my then-boyfriend-now-husband a home-baked brioche.
I also fell in love with my own creations up to the point where I started to visually catalogue every dish and obnoxiously post them on Facebook for all my friends and family back home to see.
Cooking provides me with a lot of comforts. When I was able to make something out of nothing, it gave me a certain level of self-worth. I found reassurance and happiness at the bottom of a Chili Con Carne pot.
What I got out of that experience was an enduring hobby, a love of food photography, and the ability to nurture my friends and family. Food has turned from sustenance to passion.
As the world turns upside down, or more accurately outside in, I love seeing the resurgence of home-cooked meals.
Perhaps, in these uncertain times, like my first few months of living in NY, people are finding comfort in their own food creations. Banana bread in banana times seems to make perfect sense - filling, delicious and comforting.
Whether the dish is born out of practicality, economic reasons or sheer boredom, it really doesn’t matter. Pandemic or not, a simple home cooked meal has a magical ability to console and connect people.
Many chefs welcome people into their homes and teach them necessary cooking skills and simple dishes.
As it turns out, it’s not just the virus that is contagious. Our creativity in the kitchen is too.
So, I’d like to share some of my own baking during these times of social distancing. I’m aware I’m lucky enough to live in a city where I can still get by and manage to find what I want to cook. It’s a privilege which I don’t take lightly.
Nothing lasts forever. Things will hopefully go back to “normal” soon. But I really do hope home-cooking is here to stay.
Be safe.
