Bread has been an important staple since Stone Age Farmers created the first flat bread.
A rough porridge was mixed together and spread thinly over hot stones to form soft pancake-like bread.
It is truly amazing feat that the connection was made between wheat, water and sunshine to give us this most enduring of foods.
The next step forward was achieved 5,000 years ago in the Bronze Age, when it was discovered that inverting a pot over hot stones forms a primitive but effective oven.
But the honor of mastering the art of yeast fermentation goes to the ancient Egyptians, who observed that of dough was left out in the open for a few hours it would often bubble and smell a little sour.
If the sour dough was baked, the resulting bread had a lighter texture and a pleasant yeasty flavour.
The down side to this discovery was that it relied on airborne yeast particles, which made it completely unreliable.
To overcome this, the Egyptians would simply save a piece of fermented dough from a previous successful batch and mix it into the new dough.
Bread has always played rather a telling role in Europe’s social history – the bread in the hands would always reveal the rank.
Made from refined flour, white bread was regarded as infinitely superior and therefore only suitable for the upper classes.
These days, or course, the reverse is true.
Dense, wholegrain breads are now thought to be healthy, more nourishing option and priced accordingly.
It is indeed ironic that people will pay a comparatively large sum of money for something that was once considered the bread of paupers.
History of Bread Baking
