The History of Bread

Bread is without doubt one of the oldest foods know to man. In fact it has been a staple food for over 5,000 years. Its main ingredient, wheat, is even older, first grown in the Middle East over 8,500 years ago.

Of course the bread we eat today is very different from the first loaves baked by Stone Age man, but shape and texture of modern bread products have evolved gradually over the centuries providing a fascinating link with the past.

Stone Age
The oldest record of bread-making is from the Stone Age when man made flour by crushing grains of wild grass by hand between two stones- one of which was hollowed.

The meal produced was then mixed with water to make a form of dough and cooked on a bakestone over an open fire. The bread was coarse and extremely heavy in texture.

Ancient Egyptians
It was the Ancient Egyptians who first discovered the properties of yeast and produced ‘risen’ loaves.

Bread making was considered a great art with grain stored in special houses and ground into flour using pestle and mortar.

Milk, honey and dried fruits were added to the dough to produce all kinds of interesting loaves.

The Egyptians also invented the first baker’s oven, a cone-shaped clay vessel.

The Romans
Real progress for bread-making came with the Romans who were the first to apply rotary motion to milling. This involved grinding the grain between circular stones, one rotating, and the other stationery. They could even control the quality of the meal by adjusting the width between the stones. Slaves, donkeys or oxen were used to work the larger mills. They sifted the flour after milling to make a light dough and cooked their bread in large bee-hive-shaped brick ovens. Sometimes they also flavoured the bread with honey and dried fruit.

The Vikings
The Vikings also had an influence on the development of bread, introducing rye flour and making flat, unrisen rings - the origin of today’s crispbread – which were threaded onto tent poles for easy storage.