Bread is the name given to the oldest, commonest, and cheapest form of human food. Bread is made of the flour or meal of one or more kinds of cereals, which can be obtained from some grasses, seeds, and root stocks other than cereals.
History:
Grain cultivation most likely began around 10,000 B.C, and bread was baked on hot stones into loaves of flatbread. Evidence of ovens was found dating back as far as 25,000 B.C. in the Ukraine.
Historians think that the first combination of bread ingredients and yeast happened by accident. Probably when an alcoholic drink or fermented honey was accidentally added to flatbread dough. This more likely happened in a brewery in ancient Egypt where archaeologists have found ruins and drawings of bakeries and breweries. The Egyptians had supplies of mead, beer, and primitive wines.
By the third century B.C., Romans had created ovens made from dried and hardened mud, and by 200 B.C. there were more than 200 bakeries in Rome. Roman Emperor Trajan (98-117 A.D.) founded the first bakers’ school in Rome. Once a man became a baker, he was not allowed to change work. They taught their sons the trade, passing baking secrets down from generation to generation.
There are many stories of wars being won or lost and favors being granted by the barter of freshly baked bread. French soldiers demanded white bread to give them courage, and Greek women were said to have tucked a piece of bread into their husbands’ clothing as he went off to war. Bakers in local communities celebrated political victories or “saved a country” by introducing a specific shape or type of bread.
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