Bread on Earth is about bread on earth.

^{This site houses work exploring bread’s potential as a social, political, economic, and ecological barometer.

A dialectic experiment, Bread on Earth considers its namesake as both metaphor and vital physical substance.

Through practical and theoretical study and engagement, we aim to restore value to an ancient and basic necessity, outside of the marketplace.

*While the pursuit is ongoing, it is not always updated here.}

NOW

On the heels of a long assault on wheat and bread by makers of both industry and culture, we are witnessing a dramatic return to it. Seeing as you’ve found yourself here, you may be part of that tide. Welcome. Such a strong interest in bread baking throughout the pandemic exposes just how urgent making, distributing, and consuming necessary goods outside of a commodity marketplace is. Our estrangement from these processes has many feeling inadequately prepared to sustain themselves. Because of, or in the face of this, bread has once again, as in so many other eras of crisis, risen up as a symbol of sustenance, comfort and security. How do we get to it? Many regional, non-commodity farmers, millers and bakers are standing by to provide for this resurgence. Flour is the commodity that requires humans to produce. And before it was a staple commodity, it was a staple of life. A return to bread then logically coincides with a moment when human life feels unprecedentedly precarious. All metaphorical intonations of bread as livelihood, bread as money, as body, bread as life, have melted pretty quickly into the real. I am sending sourdough starter to anyone interested in the process, and encouraging a network of bakers to dehydrate and share their own with their communities. Instructions for that, as well as sourdough maintenance, can be found here. Please contact me if you’d like to partake in either of these initiatives. All questions and comments can be sent to please@bread-on.earth
Stay safe, and let this time remind you that bread is only a threat when in the hands of few, and power when in the hands of many.

A flatbread, whatever you make of it.

a very sour beet bread, above