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Parts of the ancient world that drank wine instead of beer used a paste composed of grape must and flour that was allowed to begin fermenting, or wheat bran steeped in wine, as a source for yeast. That's a pretty wide range, and it might have been much earlier. [16], Even in antiquity there was a wide variety of breads. The roots would have been peeled and dried before they were ground into flour and mixed with water. It's also around that time that we begin to find the earliest ovens dedicated to cooking, although these seem to have been more like barbecue pits than actual ovens—pigs had been domesticated by that time as well. But we don't know for sure. [27], For generations, white bread was the preferred bread of the rich while the poor ate dark (whole-grain) bread. By using The Spruce Eats, you accept our, 21 Easy Yeast Bread Recipes Even Beginner Bakers Can Make, Bread Becomes a Commodity: The Roman Empire, Baguettes, Naan, Focaccia: 35 Bread Recipes From Around the World, Spain's Food and the 6 Different Culinary Regions, The Midwest Is the Heart and Soul of American Bread, Garlic and Ginger: Chinese Cooking Staples. Bread, in all its various forms, is the most widely consumed food in the world. A 2010 study by the National Academy of Sciences discovered traces of starch (likely from the roots of cattails and ferns) in prehistoric mortar and pestle-like rocks. [20], In medieval Europe, bread served not only as a staple food but also as part of the table service. From the Fertile Crescent, where wheat was domesticated, cultivation spread north and west, to Europe and North Africa, and east towards East Asia. Starting around 9500 B.C., some of the earliest crops grown in the ancient Levant, a region encompassing the Eastern Mediterranean and Middle-East, included wheat, barley, rye, lentils, chickpeas, and flax. By the 5th century BC bread could be purchased in Athens from a baker's shop, and in Rome, Greek bakers appeared in the 2nd century BC, as Hellenized Asia Minor was added to Roman dominion as the province of Asia;[17] the foreign bakers of bread were permitted to form a collegium. Not only is it an important source of carbohydrates, it’s also portable and compact, which helps to explain why it has been an integral part of our diet for thousands of years.

Not to mention, it was much more tasty. The New York Public Library’s “Lunch” exhibit notes: “Nineteenth and early 20th-century cookbooks and magazines gave highly specific advice about lunchtime sandwich making. Conversion to Dehydroascorbic Acid", "Modern History of Bread - 20th Century UK", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=History_of_bread&oldid=985403787, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License, This page was last edited on 25 October 2020, at 19:23. [22] America had a more difficult time ending these processes of adulteration however, as various states had varying policies regarding bread making. Many historical variations can be found on the beginnings of bread.

It's not quite clear which came first—the beer or the bread. Bread, in all its various forms, is the most widely consumed food in the world. The quern was the first known grinding tool. Wheat was domesticated in the Fertile Crescent. [25][26], A major change in the United Kingdom was the development in 1961 of the Chorleywood bread process. The discovery that planting a seed made it grow into food must have seemed nothing short of miraculous (and it still is, if you think about it), which no doubt explains why so many ancient deities, like the Egyptian god Neper and the Greek goddess Demeter, were associated with grain and agriculture. González Carretero, L.; Wollstonecroft, M.; Fuller, DQ. This gas is what causes bread to rise. Greek bakers appeared in Rome in the 2nd century BC. But if you see something that doesn't look right, click here to contact us! Southeast Europe and Anatolia in Prehistory Essays in Honor of Vassil Nikolov on His 65th Anniversary, eds Bacvarov, K.; Gleser, R. (Habelt, Bonn), pp 519–526. In the Deipnosophistae, the author Athenaeus (c.A.D.170 – c. 230) describes some of the bread, cakes, and pastries available in the Classical world. However, in most western societies, the connotations reversed in the late 20th century, with whole-grain bread becoming preferred as having superior nutritional value while Chorleywood bread became associated with lower-class ignorance of nutrition. For ladies and children, the bread was supposed to be sliced very thinly and the crusts removed. At … This in turn led to the formation of towns, as opposed to the nomadic lifestyle, and gave rise to more and more sophisticated forms of societal organization. A typical Roman bakery could produce enough bread for 2,000 people daily. I. Bread, baked food product made of flour or meal that is moistened, kneaded, and sometimes fermented. MS., City Clerk's Office, Record Book, 1814-1820, pp. Indeed, the English word "bread" may be related to the word "brew.". Similar developments occurred in the Americas with maize and in Asia with rice. Examples include Middle Eastern pita, Indian naan and Central American tortillas. [23], In the mid 19th century, Britain imported much of its bread wheat from the United States.

In medieval Europe, bread served as a staple food as always but it also had a special role. A major food since prehistoric times, it has been made in various forms using a variety of ingredients and methods throughout the world.

How exactly did bread—an integral part of so many meals and cultures—come to be? Later on, during the Iron Age, the baking stone was replaced by an iron griddle which continued to be used for traditional soda bread well into this century. So, all around a good thing. [18] Among the breads mentioned are griddle cakes, honey-and-oil bread, mushroom-shaped loaves covered in poppy seeds, and the military specialty of rolls baked on a spit. [5][6] Bread is found in Neolithic sites in Turkey and Europe from around 9,100 years ago. Commercial yeast production dates back to the skilled bread makers of Ancient Egypt around 300 B.C.

[31] Calcium was added to flour in the UK to prevent rickets which had been detected as common in women who joined the World War 2 effort. The Spruce Eats uses cookies to provide you with a great user experience. The most common source of leavening in antiquity was to retain a piece of dough (with sugar and water in) from the previous day to utilize as a form of sourdough starter. Settle for a “10 Grain Breakfast Cereal” full of ancient grains, like millet, coarsely ground. Sliced Bread: Mechanized bread slicer invented in 1917, in widespread use by 1930. Either way, we can be fairly certain that the earliest yeast breads were sourdough and they would've been made by saving a piece of each day's dough and adding it to the next day's, and so on, much like the way bakers today keep their sourdough starter. The earliest bread grains would have been ground by hand with rocks. Set the slate tiles on top of the coals, and wait about 10 minutes. In about 10 minutes, you’ll have a pile of hot, crispy cakes. The very earliest yeast breads probably came about by accident, when airborne yeasts landed in dough, causing it to rise. This would've been a huge development, since it's much easier to carry around bread than it is to carry gruel. These stones were continuously rotated by draft animals or slaves. The first leavened bread was likely the result of some passing yeast making a home in a bowl of gruel. [24], Bread-baking was industrialised at the start of the 20th century. Perhaps it was simply eaten as a gruel, but it may have been cooked on flat rocks heated in a fire to produce a very early flatbread. There were three primary innovations that created “modern” bread.

"[19] The essentiality of bread in the diet was reflected in the name for the rest of the meal: ópson, "condiment", i.e. After five minutes, flip them with a piece of bark—and you’ll be amazed to see the grain is browning on the heated rock. Charred crumbs of a flatbread made by Natufian hunter-gatherers from wild wheat, wild barley and plant roots between 14,600 and 11,600 years ago have been found at the archaeological site of Shubayqa 1 in the Black Desert in Jordan, predating the earliest known making of bread from cultivated wheat by thousands of years. Bread was central to the formation of early human societies.

The type and quality of flours used to produce bread could also vary, as noted by Diphilus when he declared "bread made of wheat, as compared with that made of barley, is more nourishing, more digestible, and in every way superior." In those primitive times, grain was collected from wild grasses and crushed between two stones. Starch traces have been found on prehistoric mortar and pestle shaped rocks which prove this. Prehistoric man had already been making gruel from water and grains, so it was a small jump to starting cooking this mixture into a solid by frying it on stones. This is another big one! All Rights Reserved. 207–21, "Chapter 12: Their staff of life: Initial investigations on ancient Egyptian bread baking", "3,500-year-old bread and beer from the New Kingdom, Egypt", "An archaeological study of baking and bread in New Kingdom Egypt (doctoral thesis)", "Criticisms of the Chorleywood bread process", "Social Class Differences in Women's Fat and Fibre Consumption: A Cross-National Study" 1995, "Ascorbic Acid as an Oxidant in Wheat Flour Dough.

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