https://anybodycanbake.

com/history-of-baking/-baking/

What is Baking?
Baking is a form of cooking where you cook flour-based food under prolonged
heating. An oven is generally used to bake food but there are a few other methods to
bake food without an oven. Homestead Honey mentions a few ways of baking without
oven. I experimented the baking without oven by baking cookies without oven.
Bread is the first thing that comes to your mind when you think of baking.
However, cookies, cakes, muffins, and many other foods are also popular in baking
.
The history of Baking
The world’s oldest oven, around 6500 years old, was discovered in Croatia in 2014.
Bread baking began in Ancient Greece around 600 BC. Wikipedia
Egyptians were pioneers in baking and the traces of their baking are as old as 2600
B.C. (Source Baking Times). Egyptians were the one who started baking bread using
yeast.

 
Baking and its Importance
Baking was traditionally done at home by women, generally for the family.
Commercially, men used to bake in bakeries and restaurants. Baked goodies,
especially bread are one of the most important parts of our day to day food.  Human
beings have been baking for ages. The history of baking is deep enough to encourage
you to start baking at home.
European and American cuisines have a high importance of baking. The cuisine looks
incomplete without bread, cakes, pastries etc. that forms a major part of their food. In
Asian countries, Chapati is the most common bread in the food. Chapati is one of the
simplest forms of baking without an oven.
Advantages of Baking
Baking enhances the flavor and aroma of the food. For those who have been baking at
home, they know what I mean when I talk about the aroma of baking. Baking can
expand the possibilities of making food healthier. People are moving from deep fried
stuff to baked goodies.
Baking is no longer just all-purpose flour, white sugar and butter baked together.
Health conscious people have taken baking to a different level. People now bake with
millets, whole wheat flour, and multigrain flour. They avoid sugar and extract
sweetness naturally. This Ragi cookies recipe with Jaggery is a fantastic example of the
same.
History of Cake Baking
The history of cakes dates back to ancient times. Initial cakes were way too different
from today’s exotic cakes. The cakes in olden times were more bread-like with sugar
or honey added to them. The word cake was derived from the Old Norse word “kaka”.
Oxford dictionary traces the word “cake” back to the 13 th century.
Historian claims Europeans to have baked the first modern round cake with icing on
it. Cakes are made from various combinations of flour, butter, shortening, eggs, sugar,
honey, baking powder, and baking soda and flavoring agents. The Internet is full of
cake recipes.
A typical question that people have asked time and again is why baking at home? For
them buying bread from the market is cheap and easy than doing it at home. The first
article of this tutorial helps you understand why baking at home is important for you.
Doubts, questions, suggestion, please share in the comment box.
See you in the next post.

Recommended Resources
Best Baking Books for Beginners and Professionals

Find the Best Baking Books for beginners and pro alike. Whether you are interested in
baking cakes or baking bread, you will find best baking books here.

Visit Website

Best Yeast For Baking Bread

For all your bread baking experiments at home, you will need active dry yeast or
instant yeast. Buy the best yeast for baking fresh bread at home.

Visit Website

Best Oven to Buy for Baking

What is the best oven to buy for baking? How to choose between microwave vs oven?
Should I buy a countertop oven or a built-in oven? All your questions answered here.
Clear all your doubts regarding ovens and buy the best oven for your baking.
https://manyeats.com/history-of-bread/

If you ask me one thing that my daughters would drop anything to eat – it's
fresh bread. Sourdough, white bread, whole grain bread – it almost doesn't
matter the type in their eyes.

But isn't bread fascinating? Like you, I wondered about the history of bread –
so I set out to trace this staple food from its early emergence to its current
form.

So let's slice through the mysteries – let's discuss bread.

Table of Contents  show 

Old Sunbeam Bread Sign in El Paso, Texas (LOC)

Early Cultures & Forms of Bread

Archaeological evidence suggests that hunter-gatherer societies around
22,000 years ago already had the means to turn grains into flour and bake
rudimentary types of bread. Findings from Mesopotamia, ancient Egypt, and
the Fertile Crescent show that bread was an essential part of everyday life
thousands of ago.

However, bread production has come a long way since then. 

Early History of Bread 

Farmers began growing and cultivating crops about 12 thousand years ago.
But despite the number, the history of breadmaking goes to at least 10
thousand years before humans even thought about growing wheat and barley
in their farms.

In one archaeological excavation, the scientists studying in Ohalo II—an old

hunter-gatherer settlement in Israel—opened a new window into the history of
bread.

In this 22,000-year-old site, the researchers found remnants of barley starch

and a circle of chipped embers – signs of an open alternative to ovens and a
tool for baking bread. This significant evidence indicates that making bread
was already a well-established activity before humans became largely
agricultural.

Natufian Hunter-Gathering Culture

Another example that signifies the early emergence of bread relates to
the archaeobotanical investigations in Shubayqa 1—an ancient foraging site in
North-Eastern Jordan, dating back to the time of Natufian culture—9,500 to
12,000 BCE.

Archaeologists discovered two big fireplaces in an old structure – one of

which contained different kinds of flours. They cataloged 24 bread-like types
of remains. They found mainly crucifers, legumes, barley, oat, and einkorn
wheat.

By examining flour-like particles and grinding stone tools in the ancient village,
scientists learned that those residents were adept at sieving grains, making
flour – and turning it into high-quality bread. Therefore, just as in Ohalo II,
breadmaking was probably a routine activity for the Natufian people.

Mesopotamia and the Fertile Crescent

Scientists measured the height, width, and length of the pieces of bread they
found in Shubayqa 1 to visualize bread in ancient times. 

You've probably heard this story: early forms of bread were surprisingly similar
to the unleavened flatbreads  that were also cooked in old Mesopotamia,
ancient Egypt, and by the Indus civilization.

Flatbreads are relatively thin, featuring at least 1-millimeter thickness.

However, depending on the baking method and ingredients, they can be as
thick as a few centimeters – but all-in-all, they are nothing compared to the
loaves of bread on the shelves today. 

Flatbreads were also popular among the Fertile Crescent populace—a

crescent-shaped region in the Middle East that spans from modern-day Egypt
to the western fringes of Turkey and Iran. 

As the first farmlands of the world, whose residents began cultivating wheat
and barley around 8500 BC, the hunter-gatherers of the Fertile Crescent were
most likely among the first to make bread in a permanent place.

Ancient Baking Styles and Ovens

As you saw, 22,000 years ago, our ancestors were making ancient flatbread
over open flames. But it's not like breadmakers and advanced ovens came
overnight – cooking and baking methods also evolved.
One basic baking method in bread's history was to bury the bread under a
layer of sand, embers, and ash – "ash-baked bread." (Similar to taguella.)

Of course, woodfire and vertical ovens were also popular – and closer to how
bread is made today. Vertical ovens are cylindrical and typically made of clay,
and may be portable or fixed in location.

The vertical clay oven originated in the Syrian–Mesopotamian area, and

there's evidence that people throughout the Middle East and North Africa used
these ovens extensively. Archeologists have found remains of these ovens
from Syria, Iraq, Iran, Pakistan, and Egypt.

In Arabic, the vertical oven is often called a "tanur" or "tanour." It originated

from the Akkadian word "tinuru." Multiple variants of the word exist in different
languages from Turkish (tandir) to Persian (tanur), Georgian (tone), and even
Hindi (tandur). 

A Tannour Oven in Egypt's Valley of the Kings (CC-by-SA 2.0 Dennis Jarvis)
Ancient Egypt
Bread was a staple food for Egyptians – for everyone from the pharaoh to the
peasants. Egyptians even used special types of thick, non-porous bread as
containers for other dishes. This bread was easier to bake than leavened
flatbreads since it didn't need a vertical oven. 

Around 450 BC, Egyptians figured out that they could make these portable
meals using whatever grain was most abundant. This discovery later led to an
uptake in agricultural activities, larger villages and settlements – and
consequently, the creation of cities worldwide. 

And the Egyptians were more advanced than you'd think. In the Dynastic
Period, Egyptians could remove wheat chaff without turning roasting or other
special mechanisms. But large-scale production was hard, and only the rich
had access to free-thrashed bread wheat. Others had to use emmer wheat. 

Egyptians probably played a large role in the widespread use and

advancement of bread. They had excellent trade relationships with the Greeks
and exported bread wheat – and their bread baking knowledge – to Europe.
Also, historians know yeast-fermented breadmaking was mastered in Egypt –
early leavened bread. So Egypt possibly gave us some early examples of
sourdough – and beer (although it's true: the Sumerians first created some
inferior brews!).
Bread Advancements 
The first bread-baking efforts in history go back to when our ancestors started
harvesting grass grains. They'd smash the grains and mix the resulting
powder with water to produce a soupy, gelatinous-like ingredient. They then
shaped that paste and turned it into loaves of bread. But that wasn't the last
bread innovation, as you well know!

The Roman Empire

In the times of the Old Testament, baking bread and its associated tasks were
either a slave's job or a job for women. In about 300-150 BCE, however, the
history of bread took a large turn when the baking industry started to thrive in
the Roman Empire, and free men began considering bread-baking a decent
occupation.

Soon enough, there were hundreds of master bakers around Rome. The

popularity of baking jobs led to high regulatory scrutiny and the initiation of
the Baker's Guild in 168 BC. The Guild's rules were rigorous – once
apprenticed, bakers, their kids, and grandkids couldn't withdraw from the
practice. They were also forbidden from joining the theater (a lower-class
activity at the time).

By all accounts, the Romans made excellent bread. During this period, the
Romans brought their beer brewing expertise into the bakery field and started
to add yeast to their doughs to produce a sourdough and bake a wonderful,
fluffy leavened bread.

Rome also gives us two fascinating developments in the history of bread.

First, with the Edict of Diocletian, or Diocletian's Edict on Maximum Prices of
301 CE, we see early evidence of maximum prices on grains – in this case,
spelt. And bread was certainly political – before that, the poet Juvenal coined
the phrase Bread and Circuses. Bread and Circuses, or food and games, was
his cynical take on all politicians needed to supply to appease the Roman
population.

Greece 
The Romans and the Greeks preferred white bread over dark because, at that
time, color was an important factor in distinguishing bread quality. White
bread requires sieving the bran and germ – much harder than other forms of
processing.

Therefore, the educated and affluent class tended to eat different white bread
types. On the other hand, those of lower status couldn't afford to buy white
bread and settled for the darker loaves.

In Greece, many people were poor peasants who had to farm grains to pay
their taxes and earn some money to eke out a meager living. As a result, they
never had enough money to buy an oven and had to sell their grains to a
baker, only to get some dark bread in return. 
Base of an Olynthus Mill found in Yavne-Yam, Israel (CC-by-SA 3.0 Wikimedia)

At the time, most bakers didn't own bakeries. Instead, they used to bake bread
in their homes or even the public ovens and bring them into the streets to sell.

The Greeks prayed to the goddess Demeter—the goddess of harvest and

agriculture—to increase their productivity so that they can have more grains
and, therefore, more flour to bake bread. 

Also attributed to the Greeks: in the 5th century BCE, we see the first
emergence of the Olynthus Mill—also known as the hopper rubber—to turn
grains into flour. The mill was composed of rectangular-shaped lower and
upper stones. This hand-driven mill drove the massive production of flour in
Ancient Greece, which meant more access to flour and bread. 

Breadmaking and the Gauls

The Romans and Greeks aren't the only cultures with a rich history of bread. 

Gaius Plinius Secundus, famously called Pliny the Elder, was a Roman author
and naval commander who traveled to various regions. 
In his writings, Pliny talks about the exquisite taste of the bread made in Gaul
—a region in Western Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Residents of these
areas used the foam from beer fermentation in their baking process, which
gave their bread a unique lightness and taste. 

Persians 
Persians also had great accomplishments in the baking industry. While the
Greeks and Romans were experimenting with water, they were among the first
people to invent windmills, in around 600 BC. 

The linked windmills – the so-called Nashtifan Windmills – are 65-foot-tall

windmills that still stand in a small village near the Iran-Afghanistan border.
Those particular mills have worked for an estimated 1,000 years.
Bread in the Middle Ages 
Viking Bread 
Vikings had a relatively healthy diet, which included lots of bread. They were
skilled at making a popular form of rye bread that still exists today. In addition
to rye flour, its ingredients include dried yeast and honey. 

The Trencher 
Despite its significance in people's diets, not everyone in Europe had equal
access to bread. Although medieval physicians used to recommend people
eat refined, healthy, white bread, poorer people had no other choice except
buying darker bread made of oats or rye. 

In fact, the most dominant type of bread in rich people's diets was the
trencher.

Trenchers were thick flatbreads that served as a plate for wealthy people, and
held their other dinner foods, such as meat, sauce, and mashed potatoes.
After finishing the top foodstuffs, people could finally eat the trencher, or give
it as a donation to the poor.

Early Regulation of Bread and Organizing of

Baker's Guilds
After the further rise of commercial banking and the collapse of the traditional
home bakery, new milestones in the history of bread came about through two
types of regulation:
  Self-regulatory efforts by bakers themselves—usually through baker's
guilds.
 Assize laws issued by the governing authorities.

Bread & Baker's Guilds in Europe

Guilds were joint organizations that obliged their members to obey specific
regulations, and, in return, would offer some protection in the form of trade
restrictions. 

For example, members of a guild could ensure access to cost-efficient raw

materials, safety, and financial assistance whenever their business incurred a
loss. In other words, the guilds served as insurance coverage for the bakers'
society. Around the 8th Century CE, we saw the first emergence of Baker's
Guilds in Western and Northern Europe.
Baker's Guild House in Goslar, Germany built in early 1500s (Photo from
1900s)

England and the Assize of Bread and Ale

While the guilds were the baker's guarantee of safety and support, assize laws
assured low-priced and good-quality products for customers. Like the Edict of
Diocletian in 301 AD, the famous 13th Century England Assize of Bread and
Ale put maximum prices on wheat products.
This law – and others like it – worked against guild monopolies to prevent
bakers from misusing their power – and consequently, overcharging the poor.
Based on the assize laws, a baker who breached these regulations or sold
expensive bread was condemned to predetermined fines or even whipping.

Baker's Dozen Origin 

Curiously, through this mistrust and the emergence of the regulations, the
concept of a baker's dozen – 13 or 14 pieces – emerged.

The word 'doze' is synonymous with the number 'twelve.' But, to avoid
government fines and punishment, bakers would give their customers an extra
loaf for every 12 loaves they bought. Some even went so far as to giving two
extra rolls for every 12. This is why the baker's dozen usually equals 13 or 14. 

Gristmills All Over Europe

With the growth of breadmaking in the medieval era, the number
of gristmills – cereal grain grinders – increased rapidly in the 10th century.
From the 1086 AD Domesday Book from William the Conqueror, we know
there were 5,624 water-powered gristmills in England, around 1 for every 300
citizens at the time. 

Gristmills popped up all over Europe. You can see particularly well-preserved

mills even today in Europe and throughout Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iran.
Otto Rohwedder's patent for packaged sliced bread. (Patent #1816399)

Bread and Industrialization 

Oliver Evans and the Automatic Flour Mill
After the first industrial revolution, in 1782, an American inventor named Oliver
Evans was the first to design a fully automated flour mill. Evans was a well-
known businessman and engineer of his time, who designed and built the first
automated industrial process – he built all manner of steam-powered vehicles
and machinery after his success with the mill. 

Before Evans' innovation, every single step of the milling process was labor-
based and very time-consuming. Inspired by marine applications, Evans even
designed a bucket elevator for his flour mill to help pass the crops and flours
through different parts of the mill.

After that, he further improved his machine and automated the cooling, drying,
sieving, and packing steps. This smart automation procedure saved tons of
hours spent by laborers and accelerated the whole breadmaking procedure.
You can thank Oliver for laying the tracks to supermarket bread today.
Oliver Evans' "Hopper Boy" (Fig 12) and Grist-Mill (Fig 12) from his
Book, Young Mill-Wright & Miller's Guide
Steel Roller Mill in Switzerland
In 1834, a Swiss engineer—Jacob Sulzberger—invented the steel roller mill.
Instead of crushing the grains as with stone grinding, these new mills could
separate germ and bran by applying slight pressure on the grain. This new
method produced extremely high-quality white flour for the baking industry.

Baking Powder 
At the same time, Alfred Bird, a chemist and food manufacturer in England,
developed the first version of baking powder. Baking powder was the first real
alternative to yeast, which helped to leaven dough and lighten the texture of
bread with acid reactions. 

We owe our present cakes and cookies to Bird's wife. Mrs. Bird had a yeast
allergy, which motivated Bird to look for an alternative. We probably would've
seen a significantly different timeline for cakes and other pastry products if it
wasn't for her food intolerance! 

About three decades after Bird's efforts, an American named Eben Norton

Horsford created the first double-acting baking powder. Unlike Bird's single-
acting baking powder, it didn't make carbon dioxide bubbles before heating.

These new attempts at baking powders gave a better taste to pastry products
than the fragmented ones and would increase the flavor and speed of the
bread-baking procedure.

Bread Oxidizers 
In the early 1900s, Jackel and Diachuk discovered that if they add tiny
amounts of an oxidizing agent—such as ascorbic acid and cysteine—into flour,
they can enhance the physical characteristics of the resulting dough and
produce more desirable baking products. Oxidizing agents act as if they 'age'
the dough, making it easier to handle and quicker to rise during baking.
Bread Slicing Machine
Even wonder who invented sliced bread? In 1927, Otto Frederick Rohwedder,
another American inventor, developed and commercialized the first automatic
bread slicer. 

His ingenious device not only sliced bread but also wrapped the slices up in
packaging.

Baking powders and the slicing machine were great contributors to the
success of the baking industry. However, the progress didn't end here – but
they certainly left us plenty of jokes about the best invention since sliced
bread.

Bread Today
Pre-Sliced Bread and Wonder Bread 
Soon after the invention of the automatic bread slicer, there was a major
milestone in the history of bread when a popular American brand emerged.
Wonder Bread was founded in 1921 but rose to prominence only when it
started selling pre-sliced bread in 1930. 

That joking expression – "that's the best thing since sliced bread" – was
more Wonder Bread-inspired than Rohwedder-inspired. 

With Wonder Bread's innovation, bread slices were now more uniform and
even easier to eat. People started eating more bread because it was easier to
prepare than almost anything else – you just had to reach and get another
slice.
A Wonder Bread Store in Rock Springs, WY (Library of Congress)

Fortified Bread and Bread Bans

In 1943, during World War II, the head of the FDA Claude R. Wickard ordered a
ban on pre-sliced bread due to inappropriate packaging (maybe – Wickard
apparently thought the bread packaging was wasted on bread). But the ban
didn't last more than two months – Americans heavily objected to the
decision.

Another important bread-related event during the Second World War

was bread fortification. At the time, American soldiers suffered from poor
nutritional status. The US had already gone down the fortification road –
adding iodine to salt in the 1920s.
The next solution? In 1940, the Committee on Food and Nutrition (now Food
and Nutrition Board or FNB) recommended the addition of thiamin, niacin,
riboflavin, and iron to flour. The FDA and the American Bakers Association got
together and started enriching the nation's flour in 1942. Within a year, the
authorities enacted the first War Food Order. 

After the war, in 1946, the order was repealed – only to be replaced with new
regulations in 1952. Nowadays, bread fortification isn't mandatory anymore,
but "enriched" products have to meet specific standards. 

Return to Artisan Bread 

During the 70s and 80s, nearly all bread was mass-produced using large and
complex machinery. However, shifting health consciousness coincided with
people craving hand-made bread made from ancient processes – and now
called artisan bread.

It's ironic how things have come full circle—from thousands of years ago
when people baked bread by hand to now where small-batch is again a form
of art.

Bread Statistics
Today, Ukraine, Bulgaria, and Turkey have the largest per capita consumption
of bread.

In the US, bread is extremely popular – over 95 percent of Americans say

they consume bread regularly. Moreover, in 2019, almost 200 million people
chose whole wheat or multigrain bread, and 10.21 million households ate five
loaves/packages of bread in a week. 
Bread: It Drives Civilization
We aren't starved for varieties of bread today – far from it. But before we got
to supermarket bread aisles, bread traced a fascinating path amongst our
ancestors.

From unleavened flatbread to yeast-driven leavened bread to the pre-sliced

bread on the shelves today, bread is here to stay. So the next time you eat
some bread – or my daughters steal a slice – let's keep the bread innovations
in mind!