Turkey’s favorite quarantine hobby: Making homemade bread

Heeding public health directives to stay at home, now many Turks have returned to an age-old tradition of making homemade bread, leading to unexpected climbs in demand for both yeast and flour.       

As the coronavirus crisis touched every corner of life, people began to change their consumption habits, including starting to take care of some of their needs at home as their time there grew.       

Bread making is at the forefront of these changes.       

Things cleaner at home       

"We can't go out due to the pandemic. Normally I would get the bread from a bakery but now we started making it at home," said Gökçe Küçük, who lives in the capital Ankara.       

"I even bought a bread machine," she said, adding that she no longer trusts the bread from bakeries, as she demands stricter hygiene now.       

Aslı Biçimseven from Istanbul, who also started making bread after she began working at home, echoed this view, saying she no longer sees buying bread from bakeries as hygienic in the pandemic era.       

"They [bakery workers] put the bread in the bag with their hands and some don't use gloves. They touch different places with those hands. That's why I chose to make bread at home," she added.       

Rising demand for flour       

Demand for flour in Europe has risen sharply since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, said the head of the International Association of Operative Millers (IAOM) Eurasia.       

Following the rapid spread of COVID-19, demand has been high for flour and flour products such as pasta, Eren Günhan Ulusoy told Anadolu Agency.       

"In Turkey a fall in flour consumption after the closing of restaurants and cafes was balanced out...