History of Bread

History of Bread

Some thousands of years ago, when the inhabitants of northern Europe were still eating raw or cooked meat and natural fruits, bread baking was developed in ancient Egypt. They baked a delicious and fragrant bread using yeast as an activator. While there were some primitive societies that baked thin and not very tasty bread rather like the 'Lavosh' of today, the first real inventors of bread with yeast were the Egyptians.

Herodotus, the Greek philosopher, wrote about the Egyptians that "Their approach to everything was different from other common practices of other nations" and the production of bread today owes much to this inordinate approach to handling flour!

Production of yeast, which other nations considered "an unhygienic process" was discovered by the Egyptians. The process they followed in making dough, and baking it with yeast, has been followed to the present time without much change.

"Yeast" is a living organism that multiplies itself. A small amount of yeast will increase its volume very quickly. Nobody could explain this process scientifically at that time, and for this reason, yeast was shrouded in mystery, and even in some cases considered sacred, to that extent that some nations protected it like "holy fire".

Ancient Egyptian baking ovens were constructed similar to our present village ovens, and built mainly from clay in a cone shape. Baking bread was a family routine. From the remnants of bread loaves found in the tombs of the Egyptian pharaohs we find that bread baked in those days was not much different in shape from bread baked manually today. From the coarseness of the bread it is evident that ancient Egyptians did not have very finely ground flour.

Bread nowadays, as the primary source of nutrition has major significance among most nations all over the world. In some countries like Germany, hundreds of different varieties are produced.