Does the bread have a history?
Bread is one of the oldest prepared foods. Born about 14,000 years ago in the Upper Palaeolithic, it played a pivotal (though not exclusive) role in a shift toward settled farming some 1,000 years later among early Natufian hunter-gatherers in the Levant, as evidenced by flatbread made from wild cereals at the Shubayqa 1 site in Jordan.
In Egypt around 3000 BCE, the addition of yeast refined bread-making methods, first discovered in the beer brewing industry. The same Egyptian milling stones used to create emmer wheat and barley flour for beer were employed to produce various shapes and flavors of loaves, which were also used as offerings in temples. Possibly, ancient workshops became ancient bakeries as examples multiplied.
What the Romans added to bread making was better milling technology that gave finer flour, and a variety of different kinds of bread for different social classes. Bread baking became a communal activity, with ovens available for all to use.
The Romans had a sort of flat loaf, the infamous Panis Quadratus, which was round and scored. Bread continued to be a staple food throughout and into the Middle Ages, during which many European bread types became standardized, such as the French baguette and the German Pumpernickel.
Industrialization changed the face of bread production in the modern period. In 1928, the mechanical bread slicer was invented in the US by Otto Frederick Rohwedder, a carpenter from Missouri, and pre-sliced bread became a feature of the American home.
Convenience remains the watchword for the production of bread today, with different varieties reflecting local ingredients and tastes all over the world: Italian Ciabatta, Middle Eastern Pita — bread represent both the human past and our present. It continues to endure as an expression of cultural uniqueness and continuity.
