With bread disappearing during lockdown, learn the art of sourdough baking

While professional bakers may not be able to send you their leaven, umpteen bread-lover forums help you make your own.

Eight years ago while working from home, advising businesses on matters of innovation, Sujit Sumitran would use his free time being inventive in the kitchen. After fiddling for some months with a bread machine and realising its creative limitations, he ventured into the universe of sourdough with its promise of broader possibilities. Now, his mastery of the unhurried art has earned him the moniker of “bread whisperer”. “There is an inherent goodness about slow fermented bread. The proof is in the eating,” he gushes.

When India was still a “country where bread was used when there is nothing else to eat”,