From Bellegarde's newsletter:
But, as always, we’re here for the bread. And we’re here for the bread because our passion for it is insurmountable. What we need people to understand—us bakers, cooks, farmers, fishers, chefs—is that our careers are our identities. Baking is not just what I do: it is who I am. And I sit with a lot of gratitude for where I am and where I’ve been. But I am admittedly afraid of where we are going. Because I don’t think society is visualizing the extent of vulnerability that many of us are in: literal and existential. And despite some politicians and cultural figures who have attempted to disrupt our basic relationships, we have to admit how brutally interdependent we are and have become in the past year. We shouldn’t be in the business of building levees, or in the business of keepings things out. You don’t build bread with walls and boundaries. Because if it keeps on raining, the levees are going to break. No matter what, I know that me and the bakers at Bellegarde use our passion for bread not as a defense against the world; but as an offense. It doesn’t merely protect us, it preserves us.