Australians are most interested in baking traditional bread, finding creative ways to support local businesses and playing old-fashioned family games during the coronavirus crisis, new data from Pinterest reveals.
Searches for ‘ways to support small businesses’ soared by 3,124 percent in March, as Australians mount a united front to keep their favourite cafes, restaurants and fitness studios afloat during the nationwide shutdown.
Current social distancing restrictions will remain in place for at least another month, Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced after a National Cabinet meeting late on Thursday afternoon.
Families are entertaining themselves by playing Monopoly and card games like ‘Spoons’, while amateur bakers are researching recipes from bygone eras to make simple bread with nothing but flour, butter and water.
Home cooks are also experimenting with elaborate desserts like homemade Krispy Kreme doughnuts and indulgent Baileys chocolate fudge as the country nears its second week of shutdown.
Online searches for ‘ways to support small businesses’ soared by 3,124 percent in March. Pictured: Annie Karam, owner of Speedos cafe at Bondi Beach, hands a takeaway coffee cup to a customer on March 23, 2020
HOW TO SUPPORT SMALL BUSINESSES
Australians self-isolating displayed their ‘True Blue’ spirit online last month with a record number researching how they can support neighbourhood businesses.
The shutters came down on pubs, clubs, gyms and cinemas at midday on Monday, March 23 under the second phase of the federal government’s social distancing laws designed to slow the spread of COVID-19.
The roll out of stage three restrictions on March 30 forced the closure of all remaining non-essential services, including nail bars, beauty salons and exercise classes, leaving hundreds of thousands of employers and more than one million workers reliant on government financial support overnight.
Australians keen to show solidarity with small business owners have been ordering takeouts and buying vouchers to help their favourite retailers and eateries survive the unprecedented crisis.
DAMPER BREAD
Thousands – even hundreds of thousands – of Australian amateur cooks have been baking their own bread, cakes and pastries since the pandemic triggered widespread panic buying and forced millions to self-isolate at home.
With supermarket shelves stripped bare of basic essentials, interest in traditional bread recipes skyrocketed.
Searches for ‘damper bread’, a simple Australian soda bread made from flour, butter and milk or water, rose by 263 percent across the country between February and March.
British people have been searching for ‘no yeast bread’, while Americans have been researching recipes for Navajo bread, a light flatbread deep-fried in oil which was first made by the Native American Navajo people of the southwestern United States.
Searches for ‘damper bread’ (pictured), a simple Australian soda bread made from flour, butter and milk or water, rose by 263 percent across the country between February and March
OLD-FASHIONED FAMILY GAMES
Searches for ‘family games’ increased by 155 percent on Australian shores in March, with old-fashioned games like Monopoly among the top trends.
Card playing families have been entertaining themselves with ‘Spoons’, a game named for the utensil each player is trying to win a chance to grab and the word everyone is trying not to spell.
Players take turns trying to collect four-of-a-kind and when someone does, everyone tries to grab a spoon. If you’re the player without a spoon, you get assigned a letter. The last player to spell out ‘spoons’ wins.
Spoons can be played with up to 13 people, making it the perfect game for households of all sizes.
Interest in family board games rose by 1,291 in Mexico, while in Spain – one of the nations hardest hit by the coronavirus outbreak – searches rose by a staggering 2,830 percent.
Spain recorded 184,948 infections and 19,315 deaths on Friday, April 17, along with 74,797 recoveries.
Searches for old-fashioned family games like Monopoly increased by 155 percent in Australia in March
CREATIVE DESSERT RECIPES
Quarantining and comfort eating appears to go hand in hand, with searches for elaborate dessert and creative cake recipes climbing by over one thousand percent from February to March.
Australians have been sharing their attempts at indulgent chocolate fudge with Baileys and Maltesers, homemade Kentucky Fried Chicken wings and even DIY Krispy Kreme doughnuts on Facebook and Instagram.
Searches for ‘mimosa cake’, a classic sponge laced with champagne, rose by 1,408 percent month-on-month in Italy, while searches for ‘fried sweet fritters’ rose by searches for ‘healthy gut recipes’ increased by 2,145 percent in Argentina.
Quarantining and comfort eating appears to go hand in hand, with searches for elaborate dessert recipes – like this Baileys and Malteser fudge cake – climbing by over one thousand percent from February to March