I'd Just Be a Baker, Wouldn't I...

Now, sex might be the oft-proclaimed, "oldest profession", and while I'd like to think I'd stand better chances as a storyteller anywhere in the past than here in the present...

Well, with the last name Baker, I guess I can't rule out that I might have just been a common-as-fuck baker had I been born earlier in human history.

It wouldn't be something I'd want to be, but let's be honest; most of human history, "women's work" revolved around childbearing, rearing, and household tasks - such as cooking and baking. None of which interests me in the slightest...

Honestly, I'd be more likely to be that stereotypical old hag ostracized from society for choosing to live differently, assuming I held my beliefs of today in a past format. I've never wanted to be a mother, for example, so given the option, fuck yeah, I'll take on that "creepy 'witch' in a hut in the woods" trope. Fuck societal norms!

But a woodsy hermit isn't exactly an occupation. Nor did - or do - things go well for societal outliers.

So let's say I was a born baker - not just in name, but a baker in the truest sense. It doesn't really matter when or where - any time before the industrial revolution, and the processing would have been similar anyway.

It is an old, culinary art form.

It's a pity that I do not provide a great standard for it, myself.

Baking has been documented to over 10,000 years ago; it's up there for the list of longest professions behind procreation and food gathering/hunting. Clearly, it's been recognized as something of value to still be a thing after 10,000 years.

Maybe how much of the harvesting, sorting, and milling of the products I did myself may have been different from place to place or time-frame to time-frame, but mixing ingredients, kneading dough, and baking the food items in some type of kiln are all staples of basic bread baking.

Kind of makes me wonder when cakes started being a thing (but not enough that I'm going to search for that answer currently). Can you imagine craving something sweet before cakes existed? Like what natural item gives that cake-y texture? That's like, 90% of the reason I don't lose my shit when premenstrual cravings kick in; cake. Namely chocolate cake. Yummo...

So maybe my day would have started with milking a cow or goat, cutting and gathering wood to start a fire for the kiln or oven, hand-sorting and milling wheat, gathering eggs - maybe all that before even getting to the baking. Mercy on me if I was unfortunate enough to have kids to care for as well...

Perhaps there would have been pride at preparing food for the family; perhaps only shame for not providing the way a man would. Depends on the time and place, once again.

Maybe I'd be using a family recipe passed through word of mouth and countless times helping grandma in the kitchen. A recipe 10 generations old, instead of whatever I find on the first page of a Google search or a tried-and-true from an old recipe book full of modern tools - and modern, processed products.

Maybe the oven would be the only source of warmth through the bitter winters, and the bread I made the only source of food for weeks until roads were traversable by foot again.

It wasn't all cupcakes, those 10,000 years plus.

Growing up, "Pat-a-Cake" was the classic kids' song sung in the family home, for obvious and humorous reason; our last name being Baker. I remember getting teased a lot for my last name growing up, and resenting it. My aunt Pam, however, got it a lot worse, though...

I do bake, sometimes - but I'm not very good at it. Often, my baked goods come out a little weird for one reason or another. Thankfully, my dogs don't mind some funny-shaped dog biscuits. I can't imagine doing it daily, or for a living. No, being a true baker would not be my job of choice...

...but it would sure beat most anything else that has historically been offered as a "woman's job".

And hey - there's always room for improvement. Maybe one day, I'll be a true baker yet!

But I kinda doubt it...

I just don't have the patience to do some of it right.