BBC: France seeks Unesco heritage status for the baguette. “When you think of Unesco heritage status, Stonehenge, the Taj Mahal or the Great Barrier Reef may spring to mind. You probably wouldn’t think of a baguette. But France has nominated its staple bread stick for inclusion on the UN intangible cultural heritage register.”
TechCrunch: Google AI concocts ‘breakie’ and ‘cakie’ hybrid baked goods. “If, as I suspect many of you have, you have worked your way through baking every type of cookie, bread and cake under the sun over the last year, Google has a surprise for you: a pair of AI-generated hybrid treats, the ‘breakie’ and the ‘cakie.’ The origin of these new items seems to have been in a demonstration of the company’s AutoML Tables tool, a codeless model generation system that’s more spreadsheet automation than what you’d really call ‘artificial intelligence.’ But let’s not split hairs, or else we’ll never get to the recipe.”
CNET: YouTube views of sourdough videos jumped 400% in coronavirus lockdown. “YouTube’s average daily views of videos related to sourdough leapt more than 400% between March 15 through the end of May compared with the two-and-a-half month period that preceded it, the Google-owned video company said Thursday. Average daily views of videos with ‘workout at home’ in the title increased more than 200% since March 15 compared with their average for the rest of the year.”
CNET: A chef offered up her sourdough starter on Instagram and the results are amazing. “Nothing travels faster than news in 2020, thanks to social media, except maybe sourdough starter. Just ask Johanna Hellrigl, the 31-year-old chef and Washington, D.C, resident who, at the start of the outbreak when the U.S. began shuttering, offered to share a sourdough starter with her 6,000-plus Instagram followers. At last count, the former executive chef at Doi Moi had distributed over 500 iterations of her starter and, in doing so, created a sprawling network of baked goods and goodwill in rather dark times.”
Lifestyle Asia: 9 best online resources to learn how to make bread. “We’re all spending way more time at home these days. Chances are, you’re picking up a few newfound hobbies, whether it’s playing the ukulele or learning Spanish. Yet, for something that will really yield into a life skill far beyond these days of lockdown, you’ll want to try your hand at making bread. As everybody’s Instagram feeds flourish with the ubiquitous homemade sourdough starter flex, perhaps it’s also time for you to learn the art of turning three simple ingredients into the universe’s greatest gift.”
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