The most tangible recognition of a baker's craft comes from the customers, who might comment on their appreciation of particular batches. For John Downes, the recognition of his work is more abstract. Looked at as a health product, he sees it as improving the general state of being in his customers. This is linked to an interest in Buddhism. Making every day different might be seen as a special role for bread-making in our contemporary world.
Bakers have the potential to occupy a strong position of sentimentally-based power in our society.
Given that the average life consists of as many as 30,000 days, it appears easy to forgo any one of these without appreciable difference. You might feel the same in casting a single vote in an electorate of 30,000 voters. Yet days are the basic units of life and so require some work in themselves. Without a culture that provides a sense of the day through religious and civic rituals, it is all the more important that trades like baking provide opportunities to make and appreciate the days allotted to us. The days in a life can come either as slices of white bread, each identical, or a sourdough loaf which carries a unique message about the combination of elements that occur only on that day.