Bread

When Covid locked everything down, after the panic came cabin fever, then homemade bread. Bread-baking turned into an activity that spoke eloquently to the moment. We were taking this basic food (food being necessary for our survival, which felt newly precious) into our own hands. The leavening aspect of yeast seemed like a metaphor for hope.

So, in 2025, when surplus food distribution to those in desperate need is being withheld as a geopolitical tool, it also speaks to the moment, only the metaphor is callous nativism.

At this moment, there is $489 million worth of food sitting in warehouses destined for spoilage after funding for USAID was paused by the Trump administration.

This means the suspension of programs serving hundreds of thousands of people in 20 countries. For example, in Sudan, nearly 500 bakeries in Darfur provided daily subsidized bread to hundreds of thousands of starving people. Today, those bakeries are shuttered. People have died, are dying, and will die as a result.

Are you better off than you were five years ago? Five years ago, it seemed that we were all about baking our own bread, and now, we’re all about denying bread to others. I don’t know about you, but give me the good old days.