Yes, Xbox’s creator also baked 4,500-year-old Egyptian bread

What you need to know

• A video on TikTok by creator Adrianna Pater has racked up 3.5m views in 24 hours with an interesting piece of Xbox trivia.
• Seamus Blackley the man behind the design of the Xbox console, also baked a 4500-year-old Egyptian sourdough. 
• The short video pokes fun at the similarity of the Xbox symbol to sourdough bread.

Gaming and carbs go together like yin and yang, and next time you’re chowing down on your favorite gaming snack, you can think about this interesting bit of Xbox trivia brought to my attention by Adrianna Peter on TikTok, whose video on the creator of Xbox’s other eccentric hobby of baking sourdough had racked up over 3.5 million views in the space of 24 hours.

The story is a simple but fascinating one. Seamus Blackley, known for designing the groundbreaking 2001 Xbox, is not only a video game luminary but also an Egyptologist and a fervent baker. His special interest led him to take samples of yeast from ancient Egyptian pottery and bake his own unique sourdough bread. 

Is the Xbox symbol inspired by sourdough?

Although Blackley’s Egyptian baking escapades aren’t breaking news, the TikTok video has sparked renewed interest, especially with its playful comparison between the iconic Xbox logo and the X-shaped cuts on sourdough loaves. While the similarity is undeniable, the truth is a bit less poetic.

The Xbox X symbol didn’t draw inspiration from sourdough, but rather emerged from the name ‘DirectX Box.’ Crafted from Dell PC spare parts, the original Xbox prototype underwent various name changes before settling on Xbox, complete with its distinctive acid green colors to boldly differentiate it from the PlayStation. This brand evolution predates Blackley’s ancient sourdough experiments, and the more rounded X symbol only made its appearance in 2005 with the launch of the Xbox 360.

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The final Xbox symbol as we came to know it in 2001

The Xbox symbol evolved into a rounder logo in 2005 with the launch of the Xbox360

Seamus Blackley, the man, the myth, the master baker

Seamus Blackley, an enigmatic figure in Microsoft’s lore, is more than just the man behind Xbox. His quirky baking pursuits, are rooted in his unconventional approach to life. Rather than stumbling upon a sourdough recipe in a traditional cookbook, Blackley, with his penchant for Egyptology, deciphered the secrets through studying ancient hieroglyphs. The 2019 project, spanning a year, involved the meticulous extraction of yeast from 4,500-year-old Egyptian pottery.

Surprisingly, yeast can lay dormant for centuries, prompting Blackley to faithfully recreate the ancient recipe. Employing a ‘fracking’ method, he injected liquid into ceramic pots, extracting it with a syringe to preserve the ancient yeast. This yeast, lovingly revived with Emmer flour, a dense grain used by the ancient Egyptians, resulted in a true-to-form ancient sourdough loaf.

A lot of effort you may say, but Blackley was passionate about recreating the loaf exactly as it would have been intended by the ancient Egyptians, rather than using modern ingredients and methods resulting in an ancient sourdough imposter. Never one to mince his words, “People come out with a bad result and say, ‘Oh, look at this disgusting food, the ancient world must have been terrible,’ but anyone who’s studied this knows that’s utter bullshit,” says Blackley. “They were master bakers.”