In the real world, bread is one of the oldest man-made foods to still be eaten today, and it appears in cuisines from almost every part of the world. Rocks have been found in prehistoric caves from 30,000 years ago, in both Europe and Australia, that show starch residues that indicate they may have been used for pounding roots into a flatbread that could be cooked over a fire.
It wasn’t until the Neolithic era, which began about 12,000 years ago, that agriculture began to spread and grains like wheat and rice became the principal ingredient of bread. Early on, people may have baked a primitive sourdough, with dough left to rest until natural yeast spores caused it to rise. Later this yeast was cultivated from beer and wine production.
This sourdough approach – which takes time and patience – remained popular for millennia, but in 1862 bread-baking was changed forever when British baker John Dauglish discovered that you could mix bread with carbonated water to produce “aerated bread” in industrial quantities, for a fraction of the time and cost.
In 1961 the Brits revolutionised baking again – developing the “Chorleywood bread process” – where high-speed industrial mixers blend together flour, water, fat, salt, yeast, and vitamin C. This technique, which is how 80% of British bread is produced today, allows it to go from flour to a sliced, packaged loaf in an amazing three and a half hours.
One of the reasons that bread is so popular is that it’s highly nutritious. It contains protein, carbohydrates, magnesium, iron, selenium, B vitamins, and dietary fiber. But it’s also very very tasty, and writing this article is making me hungry, so now I’m off to eat some bread. Bye!
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