The History of Bread

Origins of Bread and the History of Bakery

Bread is a staple food prepared by baking dough of flour and water. Bread is probably the most widely consumed food in the world. It is portable and compact, and also an important source of carbohydrates which tells us a lot why it has been a very important part of our diet for at least 30,000 years.

It is not known how the first bread was made but it probably came to be from accidental cooking or deliberate experimentation with water and grain flour because it is known that prehistoric men were already been making gruel from water and grains. The earliest evidence for flour comes from archeological findings that are 30,000 years old and date from the Upper Paleolithic in Europe. This flour was likely processed into unleavened bread. But that moment was too early in history to say that the bread was a staple food because at the time of hunting and gathering Paleolithic European diets were based mainly on animal proteins and fats. Bread took its place as a staple food during the Neolithic, some 10,000 years ago. That was the time when wheat and barley were domesticated in Mesopotamia and near Nile. With transfer from hunter-gatherer subsistence to agricultural diets, bread becomes more dominant in the diets of peoples but the material for its making depended

on cereals that grew locally. That changed people from nomads to farmers, led to the formation of towns and with that changed society forever. Bread marked that change.

In the ancient times appeared the first complex techniques of baking bread. One of them was to retain a piece of dough from the previous day to use as a form of sourdough starter which will start fermentation in the dough and allow it to rise from which the bread will last longer and have better flavor. Gauls and Iberians used the foam skimmed from beer for a starter while peoples that drank wine and had no beer, used a paste composed of grape must for that same purpose. The first free-standing ovens with a door for access were made in Ancient Greece. Different breads were also made like barley bread and wheaten bread as well as cakes, cookies, and pastries.

In medieval Europe, bread was also used as a plate. A piece of stale bread 15 cm by 10 cm, called “trencher”, was used as an absorbent plate. When the meal was finished trencher could then be eaten, given to the poor or fed to the dogs. Plates made of wood first time appeared in 15th century.

In the modern times, baking of the bread is industrialized. Bread is made much faster at the expense of taste and nutrition. The white bread was always the preferred bread of the rich while the poor ate dark, whole grain, bread while at the end of the 20th century that idea changes and whole grain bread becoming preferred as healthier while white bread became reserved for the poor. Chemical additives are also added to speed up mixing time and reduce necessary fermentation time.

Flour is a powder which is made by grinding cereal grains, seeds or roots. It is used as an ingredient for baking bread, cakes and in some other foods. Different cultures have flour made from different cereals and while in European, North America, Middle Eastern, Indian and North

“Bread is probably the most widely consumed food in the world. It is portable and compact.”

History of Flour

This map shows Mesopatamia and the Nile river in Egypt where wheat and barley where domesticated. Unleavened bread was also prominent in this area of Egypt. It dates back to Biblical times.

Bread Baking Then and Now

Archaeologists have discovered illustrations of bakeries and loaves of bread in ancient Egyptian burialsites. Professional bakers and homebakers used the same production techniques. Home bakers, usually women, baked only the bread they would need for that day. Today bread production is more complicated. Yes, you can still bake your own bread at home with storebought flour and yeast. You can also buy bread made at small bakeries. But the fluffy bread you see in grocery stores in the United States today is made in large commercial facilities. These commercial facilities, or plants, have business contracts to bake many different bread brands. Most breads today are made using four basic ingredients: flour, yeast, salt, and water. Farmers across the United States grow wheat in large quantities. Half of the wheat produced is used in the United States. The other half is exported to other countries. Grain is processed into flour by companies which then sell the flour to commercial bakeries. These bakeries produce the dough and bake the bread, then package it and arrange for its distribution to stores.

African cultures it is most commonly made from wheat, in Central America (Mesoamerica) it is made from corn from the ancient times while in central Europe it is made of rye. Some types of flour are made from rice. Flour is with us a long time now: there is archeological evidence that shows that flour was made some 30,000 years ago in the time of the Upper Paleolithic in Europe. Oldest technique for flour making was in combination of a stone mortar and pestle. The Romans made flour by grinding seeds on cone mills, combination of two stone of which one, upper, is convex and other, bottom, concave. Upper was turned by an animal while the bottom stood still. In time, different mechanisms of grinding of flour were invented. Ancient Greeks had watermills before 71 BC. Grain was fed between millstone, which was turned by the mechanism powered by water, and bedstone and grinded into powder. After watermills, appeared mills that were powered by wind. With the beginning of the Industrial age, mills were powered by steam and grinded the flour with rollers which were metal or porcelain, instead of horizontal stones. That increased flour production and gave a product with a longer shelf life. Before the

industrialization, white flour was expensive and only affordable for the rich. Roller mills made removing of the germ much easier so white flour becomes more affordable for the poor. Problem is , that germ holds majority of the vitamin B and because white bread becomes staple food for the poor, diseases caused by lack of B vitamins such as pellagra and beriberi started appearing in large number. When the vitamins were discovered and their connection with diseases found during the 1930s, flour was enriched with iron, niacin, thiamine and riboflavin. Folic acid was added in the 1990s.

“Oldest technique for flour making was in combination of a stone mortar and pestle.” Rosemary and Parmesan Focaccia

1 ½ cups bread flour 1 ½ cups unbleached all-purpose flour 2 teaspoons salt 1 tablespoon white sugar 1 (.25 ounce) package instant yeast 1 ⅓ cups warm water (110 degrees F) 3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil, divided 2 tablespoons chopped fresh rosemary 2 tablespoons grated Parmesan cheese

1. Stir together both flours and salt in a large, stoneware bowl. Make a well in the center of the flour mixture; sprinkle sugar and yeast into the well. Carefully pour the water into the well. Let stand until the yeast begins to act, about 5 minutes.

2. Pour 2 tablespoons oil into the well. Stir the center of the mixture with a wooden spoon, gradually widening the are you are stirring to incorporate all the flour.

3. Turn dough out onto a floured surface, and knead just until smooth. Keep the dough soft.

4. Pour 1/2 teaspoon oil into a clean bowl. Place the dough in the bowl, turning once to oil the top. Cover and let rise until doubled, 30 to 45 minutes.

5. Grease a baking sheet with 1 teaspoon oil.

6. Punch the dough down and transfer to the prepared baking sheet. Gently press dough out to a thickness of about 1/2 inch.

7. Pour the remaining 1 1/2 teaspoons oil over the top of the dough. Use the handle end of a wooden spoon to dimple the dough at 1 1/2 inch intervals. Sprinkle with rosemary and Parmesan cheese. Place in a cold oven on the center shelf. Place a flat pan of hot water on the shelf below the bread. Let rise until doubled in size, 20 to 25 minutes.

8. Turn the oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C). Bake the focaccia until browned on top, 20 to 25 minutes. Remove from the pan, and cool on a wire rack. Serve warm.

There are now different types of flour: Unbleached flour is simply flour that has not undergone bleaching and therefore does not have the color of “white” flour. Refined flour has had the germ and bran removed and is also called white flour. Bleached flour is a type of refined flour that had added whitening agent. Four most commonly used agents are: potassium bromate, benzoyl peroxide, ascorbic acid and chlorine gas. Plain flour or all-purpose flour is flour that does not have a leavening agent. Self-rising flour is flour is sold premixed with chemical leavening agents. It is used for baking of lighter and softer baked products. Enriched flour is a flour with replaced flour nutrients that are lost during processing.

Other flours that are made from other materials and that can be found on the market are: acorn flour, almond flour, amaranth flour, atta flour, bean flour, brown rice flour, buckwheat flour, cassava flour, chestnut flour, chickpea flour, coconut flour, corn (maize) flour, cornstarch, rice flour, hemp flour, maida flour, mesquite flour, nut flours, peasemeal or pea flour, peanut flour, potato flour, rice flour, rye flour, sorghum flour and tapioca flour.

Wheat is a cereal grain. It originally comes from the Levant region of the Near East and Ethiopian Highlands, but it spread in time and is now cultivated worldwide. Wheat is grown on more land area than any other commercial food. It is also the most traded crop, much greater than all trade of the other crops combined. Wheat grain is used for many purposes but mainly for foods. It is used for making flour for different kinds of bread, for biscuits, cookies, cakes, breakfast cereal, pasta, noodles, and for fermentation to make beer, some other alcoholic beverages, and for making of biofuel. Wheat is also used as a livestock feed, and its straw is used as a construction material.Earliest archeological findings of domesticated wheat found in the

History of Wheat

Karacadag mountain region of what is today southeastern Turkey and are dating some 12,000 years ago. The earliest collected wheat (of the wild kind) was wild emmer at the Ohalo II site in the southern Levant which were 23,000 years old. Domesticated wheat has much larger seed than the wild ones and the seeds remain attached to the ear. Cultivated wheat came to Greece, Cyprus and India by 6500 BCE, Egypt shortly after 6000 BCE, Germany and Spain by 5000 BCE and by 3000 BCE, wheat had reached England and Scandinavia. With cultivation and repeated harvesting and sowing of the grains of wild wheat farmers made domestic strains that were more suitable for human consumption. Today we have many species of wheat.

Common wheat or Bread wheat is a species that is the most widely cultivated in the world. Durum is wheat which has very hard, translucent, light-colored grain and is used for making semolina flour (coarse, purified wheat middling) for pasta. It is very high in gluten protein. Hard White is hard, light-colored, opaque, chalky wheat with medium level of protein. It is often planted in dry areas and commonly used for bread and brewing. Soft White is soft, light-colored wheat which is very low in protein and grown in temperate moist areas. Used for pie crusts and pastry.

Until the early 19th century, growing and harvesting of wheat didn’t differ very much from the methods of the ancient Egypt. Farmers harvested wheat by hand with a sickle. Stalks were tied by hand into bundles and waited the threshing. Trashing was done by livestock who trampled the stalks or farmers beat the stalks to loosen the grain from the stalks. Chaff was divided from the grain by throwing in the wind which blew the chaff away. This process was called winnowing. A reaping machine was patented in

“Wheat is grown on more land area than any other commercial food.” Monkey Bread

2 cans buttermilk biscuits 10 ct 1/2 cup sugar 1 Tbsp cinnamon 3/4 cup brown sugar 3/4 cup melted butter

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F and grease a 10” bundt pan with a non stick cooking spray.

2. Remove the biscuits from the packaging and cut them into 4 pieces each.

3. Place the biscuit pieces into a large zip lock bag. Add the granulated sugar and cinnamon to the bag. Do not remove the air from the bag. Seal the bag and shake to coat the biscuits with the cinnamon and sugar mixture.

4. Then place the biscuit pieces into the bundt pan. Place the butter and brown sugar in a small sauce pan. Then heat over medium high. Whisk the ingredients together and bring the mixture to a boil.

5. Pour the brown sugar and butter mixture over the biscuits in the bundt pan.

6. Bake for 35 minutes or golden brown and the center is no longer doughy.

7. Then let the pan set for 5-10 minutes and then carefully invert onto a pan to serve. Serve warm and enjoy!

Up close of Monkey Bread 1834 by Cyrus McCormick, an American inventor. The same year was invented a threshing machine. These machines made the harvest several times faster. The steam engine of the 1880’s and the internal combustion engine of the 1920’s replaced horses and cattle that pulled original machines and made harvest again faster and easier. Today, wheat feeds billions of people and animals around the world.

Baker’s yeast is the common name for the strains of yeast used as ingredient when baking bread. It is used as a leavening agent. It converts the sugars present in the dough into carbon dioxide and ethanol and makes bread lighter and tastier.

There is no information when yeast was first used to bake bread but the earliest definite records come from Ancient Egypt. There are ideas that a mixture of flour meal and water was left longer than usual on a warm day and the yeasts that are naturally in the flour caused it to ferment before baking. Bread that was made from this dough would have been lighter and tastier than the hard flatbreads made without yeast. Baking bread with leavening but without yeast, as it is now, was done by transferring from previously mixed old dough that already risen. One more method for obtaining leavening agents was from beer which was probably also done.

In the 19th century, bread bakers obtained their yeast from beer brewers from which they made sweetfermented breads. This process known as the Dutch process (because Dutch distillers were first who began selling yeast commercially) spread to Germany and yeast was sold as cream. Tebbenhof was the first who, in 1825, found a way to make yeast into cube cakes by the way of extracting moisture. In 1867 Reiminghaus used the filter press which allowed for improved industrial manufacture of baker’s yeast. This process is called Viennese process and it spread throughout the French market. This method of making yeast cakes is still used today throughout Europe. Charles Fleischmann brought method of making yeast to United States. He was trained as a young boy in a distillery and he learned that yeast is a byproduct of distilling.

There are many forms and types of yeast: Cream yeast is the closest form to the yeast of the 19th century. It is basically a suspension of yeast cells in liquid, taken from the growth medium. Cream yeast is used in industrial bakeries with professional dispensing and mixing equipment, and it is rarely used in small bakeries or home cooks. Compressed yeast is made from cream yeast from which the most of the liquid is drained. Used for industrial and for home use. Active dry yeast consists of coarse oblong granules of yeast, with live yeast cells encapsulated in a thick jacket of dry, dead cells. It must first be rehydrated before use. Stored at room temperature it can last for a year while frozen it can last 10 years and more. For home use. Instant yeast looks like active dry yeast, but granules are smaller in diameter. It also lasts much shorter time. It doesn’t have to be rehydrated before use. For home use. Rapid-rise yeast is a type of dried yeast that is of a smaller granular size, and can be dissolved faster in dough. It gives more carbon dioxide than other yeast types and rises the dough much faster. Rapid-rise yeast is often used in bread machines.

History of Baker’s Yeast

1 (18.25-ounce) package yellow cake mix 2 (4.3-ounce) package non-instant lemon pudding mix 1/2 cup vegetable oil 4 large eggs 8 ounces sour cream 1/2 cup milk 6 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice Icing 2 1/2 cups powdered sugar 3 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice, more to taste

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Grease 2 loaf pans with oil or butter.

2. In a large bowl, add cake mix, pudding mix, oil, eggs, sour cream, milk, and 6 tablespoons of lemon juice. Beat the mixture in a stand or electric mixer at low speed just until well-combined, about 2 minutes.

3. Pour the batter into the prepared loaf pans. Bake for 50 minutes. To check for doneness, insert a toothpick into the center of the cake. If it comes out clean, it’s done baking.

4. Cool in the pans for 20 minutes. Transfer the cakes to a wire rack and let them cool completely.

5. Meanwhile, make the icing. In a bowl, whisk together powdered sugar and 3 tablespoons of lemon juice until smooth. Add more lemon juice for a thinner glaze.

6. Pour the glaze over the cooled cakes. Let the glaze set for 30 minutes before slicing.

Recipe Product

Notes on the Lemon Loaf

Lemon loaf is one of Starbucks’ most popular confections, and for good reason.

The cake is insanely moist and full of lemony goodness. It even has a sweet and zesty lemon glaze to top it off.

It’s a breeze to make, to boot. Unlike other cake recipes that require you to sift the dry ingredients and cream the butter and sugar, this one doesn’t.

You’ll simply dump all the ingredients in a bowl and give them a good stir.

Pour the mixture into a pan and pop it in the oven. It couldn’t get any easier than that.