Bake Bread and Vote!

In honor of the 2020 U.S. Election, I teamed up with author, baker, and former Comestible contributor, Sarah Owens to make some bread and vote inspired art.

We want to encourage you to vote and to bake! She baked a few “vote” loaves, and I took inspiration from her bread and turned it into a papercut and then a poster.

As Sarah has written, “sometimes bread is just enough to keep us grounded to what matters in our lives, whether that be each other, our planet, or the health of our bodies.”

The sentiment reminds me of a similar one from Sandor Ellix Katz, in his book Wild Fermentation: The Flavor, Nutrition, and Craft of Live-Culture Foods:

“Resistance takes place on many planes. Occasionally it can be dramatic and public, but most of the decisions we are faced with are mundane and private. What to eat is a choice that we make several times a day, if we are lucky. The cumulative choices we make about food have profound implications.

Food offers us many opportunities to resist the culture of mass marketing and commodification. Though consumer action can take many creative and powerful forms, we do not have to be reduced to the role of consumers selecting from seductive convenience items. We can merge appetite with activism and choose to involve ourselves in food as co-creators.”

Track down your favorite bread recipe, and then check out the video that Sarah made on how to create a “vote” stencil for your bread on her Instagram feed. Once you’ve done that you’re ready to bake! If you do, share a photo with the tag #bakethevote to share and inspire!

If you want to download and print this Vote Bread poster at home, it’s available as a 8.5×11″ or 11x 17". This poster is part of my personal series of free and downloadable vote posters. Hope they provide some inspiration and good energy in lead up to the election.

Now, go forth and bake!