I can’t, around here, find any bread I like as well as my own (which I fill up the freezers with in the winter as the produce comes out. And vice versa as my produce comes in; which is varieties bred for flavor, and tastes better than the grocery stuff.) And I like my pies with a whole lot more fruit and a whole lot less sugar than anybody seems to be selling. In fact, most of what’s on the market as prepared foods is saltier and/or sweeter than I want it, and with less flavor from what I think of as the primary ingredients.
Also, why should I pay for what I can do for myself?
Now I will buy some stuff prepared, for reasons of time or because they’re not things I’m good at making or they’re things I don’t like making; and I don’t sew, so I either buy or manage without (says the person with all her pants cuffs rolled up because they don’t make them short enough, at least not with a long rise and really good pockets, but she isn’t going to bother re-hemming them.) But in general, if I can do it and don’t hate doing it, why not have the more direct connection and the greater independence and the less need for cash of doing it myself?
Very rare for me to really like any kind of bread I can get in a store, even though there are many small artisan bakeries around here. There are not that many things I can make at home which are simply not obtainable for any price for the same quality, but bread is one of them. A few others: soup stock, or as it is now known “bone broth”. Green beans (I have given up eating them unless they are from a garden).
As far as “crafts” go, there are a thousand good reasons to make your own foods, gardens, buildings, furnishings, decorations, music, art, games. The only reasons not to are that you lack the time, strength, or the skill. Which are of course very real reasons. But I have the time although not always the physical energy any more, and many home skills (and I love learning new ones). Those I don’t have, my husband generally does. Right now I am painting my chicken coop and my husband is siding his new tractor barn. I’ve got some arty wall quilts I sewed this winter that I’m adorning a guest bedroom wall with. I just sowed a bed of wildflowers. That’s today.
There are many things I know how to do that I’m not doing any more. I’m not spinning my own wool or making cheese – in fact dairy animals and sheep are probably not going to part of my life, just too much work. I am not going to make my own clothes any more. But I could if I needed to.
Acquiring new skills is a joy. Being able to be independent of the Great Global Megabusiness model any way you can is wise. Making things with your hands is a primal satisfaction that cannot be obtained any other way that I know of.
When I was a kid, my grandfather set aside a corner in the garage for my “art”. I had all kinds of paint and clay and cloth and wood and you-name-it. Never produced anything very worthy but it was fun.
These days I don’t have much of a creative outlet, besides cooking. I have been baking a little more. My last two cakes weren’t ideal, so I tried a different recipe this weekend and it turned out much better. I need to stop though, because we’ve wrecked our healthy eating habits lately!
I love the challenge trying new recipes and techniques, but also the tried and true favorites. There’s nothing like fresh baked bread right out of the oven, with good butter slathered on top. Or a good pretzel, still warm.
I bake because I like to. I admit that I hate galley kitchens so don’t bake at my apartment - and wouldn’t once the temperature gets above 100, anyhow. Too hot - but I like my version of gingerbread. My friend’s cookie recipe. Lemon bars. I can have seasonal treats out of season.
Coming back to this: Maybe they can’t; at least, not in that price range.
To get that quality, you need to have ingredients that have flavor. Produce bred and managed for greatest production and best standing up to shipping and handling often has very little flavor.
Almost all of my homemade bread recopies (I’ve been baking about 40 years now) also have sugar. Sugar isn’t inherently bad, and it’s good yeast food. You can make bread without it, but that’s like saying you can make bread without commercially made yeast. Yes, of course you can, but the results will be different. You might even prefer them, because different isn’t bad, it’s just different.
The problem isn’t sugar, it’s how much sugar. The recipe I’ve been using the most lately works out to 1.5 tablespoons of sugar per loaf, or about 18 grams. Assuming 18 slices or more of bread to the loaf that’s 1 gram per slice or less. Or, in English units. 0.2 teaspoons per slice. Much of which is eaten by the yeast before the bread is baked.
Based on just taste, though, I strongly suspect there’s a higher percentage of sugar in commercially made bread than in my homemade stuff. And yes, one of the advantages of homemade is having a lot more control over what does and doesn’t go into your food.
The tomato-shaped objects you find in the produce section of a grocery store need to be able to stand up to shipping and to look pretty, but tomatoes used for making soup don’t need either of those properties. You just put the soup factory near where the tomatoes are grown, and once it’s canned, it’ll ship well regardless of what tomatoes you used.
I know exactly the satisfaction of which you speak, but I don’t think that “with your hands” is precisely a part of it: I find that I get the same satisfaction from designing things on the computer to be 3D printed, or from writing a computer program. Granted, those aren’t skills that most people have, and when most people make things, it is in fact with their hands (as, for that matter, are some of my other hobbies).
Feeding your family with something you have made with your hands is an act of love. You are caring for them, nourishing them through your actions. The intoxicating smell of baking bread surrounds everyone in the house like a big hug.
I like to embroider. I have embroidered many, many things throughout my life, yet I have very little of my work in my own home. That is because I have given almost all of it away to people who mean something to me. That way, I’ve given them pieces of me, made with love.
~VOW
Any fool can buy bread at the grocery store, but it takes a special kind of fool to bake bread at home.
There really is something magical about being able to combine flour, water, a pinch of salt, and whatever’s been floating around in the air to make bread. Make a good “mother” and you’ll soon think of making breads with commercial yeast as cheating with a boxed mix.
And right now, it gives people something to DO. A friend recently posted a pic of her notebook where she had planned out the day among all the stages of baking some sourdough and regular bread. Pretty much filled the day for her, and she was happy to be doing something other than vegetating in front of the TV.
If I had to make bread without any assistance from technology, I wouldn’t bother. But with a bread machine, the only effort is to put the ingredients in the bowl and press “start.”
Is it better than store-bought? Maybe not. But it is fresh, and different enough that I enjoy the variety between my bread and other’s. And it makes the house smell wonderful.
The best way to have warm, freshly baked bread on a Saturday morning while still in my pajamas is to bake it myself. And the closest baker that makes what I would consider an acceptable loaf is more than 2 miles from home.
As for the kitchen backsplash: I am home and not working right now, so it wasn’t fiscally responsible (or epidemiologically responsible) to hire someone else to do it. It wouldn’t have happened for quite some time if I hadn’t done it myself.
The garden: in addition to giving us cheaper, fresher vegetables, it reduces the number of grocery deliveries we need to pay for and keeps us both out of grocery stores.
All of the above also have the useful side effect of reducing my screen time, which I am supposed to do right now to let my brain heal from a concussion.
As for the other things mentioned in the OP - I live to make things with my own hands. It gives me pleasure. When the things I make are good enough to give (or sometimes even sell!) to others it gives them pleasure. But whether or not other people want my stuff on a given day I still like to make things.
That could be baking bread, cooking a meal, planting a garden (I just started a container garden this morning, in fact), crafting objects, or whatever. I enjoy it. At the heart of it all, that’s why I do it - I find it fun and fulfilling.
