the history of bread might not sound like the most exciting Topic in the universe because bread has always been there for us but bread just might be responsible for civilization as we know it and the act of making bread has been bringing people together for thousands of years from Mesopotamia to The Tick Tock generation So today we're getting a rise out of the history of [Music] bread but before we get started be sure to subscribe to the weird history Food Channel after that please leave a comment and let us know what other Foods you would
like to hear about all right time to stop loafing we don't know who exactly invented bread however there is evidence that humans from Europe to Australia have been grinding grain for at least 32,000 years so whoever was first they likely drove the same model car as Fred Flintstone we also don't know exactly when Humanity jumped from grinding grain to making bread but we were certainly doing it by the epipaleolithic are ER roughly 14,000 years ago the earliest known bread makers were letine Society known as the natufians they made a pike flatbread from Wild plant roots
wild wheat and wild barley the natufians were a little ahead of their time but by about 10,000 years ago bread was being made by mixing crushed grain with water then laying the dough on heated rocks and covering it with hot ash this was right about the same time people were beginning to First domesticate modern wheat in the Fertile Crescent while it was long believed the the development of Agriculture led to the creation of bread it actually now seems more likely that the creation of bread led to the development of Agriculture okay we get it bread
is a big deal it does not need to be so smug about it the domestication of wheat spread from Mesopotamia throughout the world and with it civilization there's evidence of bread consumption in places like turkey and Europe as early as 9,000 BCE and by 8,000 BCE the Egyptians had developed an un bread similar to a modern Mexican tortilla lending Credence to the theory that the Pyramids of Giza may have had Taco Bells inside them later Egyptian bread became lighter and fluffier after they realized that letting wheat dough ferment would produce gases that turned a flatbread
into a loaf the Egyptians liked bread so much that along with beer they essentially used it as currency until they switched to coins in the first millennium BCE they were also among the first to develop baking ovens speaking of which the people people of the indust Valley located in modern day India and Pakistan were making bread in vertical clay ovens sometimes called tenor tendor or Tander as early as 5,000 years ago still in use today these vertical ovens are akin to fireplaces with heated walls and a hole that functions as a chimney and can reach
temperatures of 900° f the Greeks were also innovators in the area of bread ovens and as far as anyone could tell they were the first culture to hit on the now ubiquitous configuration of a freestanding oven that could be preheated and has an access door just think if they had patented that although various forms of leavening have been used in bread going back 9,000 years the semi-permanent pairing of bread with domesticated yeast is generally agreed to not have happened until around 1,000 BCE but no one really knows who did it first some think it happened
in Mesopotamia some think it was the Romans or the Egyptians and there's always the possibility of parallel thought meaning they all came up with it on their own at around the same time whatever the case in classical times leavening was most commonly accomplished by using a leftover piece of dough from the last batch which would have contained sugar and water as a starter for sourdough and thanks to regular weird history contributor plenny the Elder we know that the GS and the iberians produced a lighter kind of bread than other people's by infusing the dough with
foam skimmed off beer bread and beer have long been noted to contain the same ingredients grain yeast and water albe it in different proportions some have even theorized that Egyptians may have made beer by first making yeasted bread and then fermenting it in water after all at the end of the day beer is really just a liquid bread that gets you drunk imagine pulling up to the food court getting a plate full of food and then sitting down to quietly eat both the meal and the tray it came on well in Europe wooden dinner wear
didn't actually come along until around the 15th century so back in the Middle Ages part of the table service would typically include something called a trencher a trencher was well a big stale piece of bread and by big we mean roughly 6 in by 4 the trencher served as an absorbent plate or Bowl to serve an eat off of and when times were tough or you just generally didn't feel like doing dishes you could finish off your meal by eating your trencher or tossing it to the family dog either way no mus no fuss during
the Middle Ages white bread made from wheat was considered the good stuff but just like today most people Wen Rich so ye Average Joe probably ate a darker bread made from oats or rye this was sometimes spiced up a bit with the addition of things like chestnuts lentils acorns rice or peas M acorns Maslin a loaf of bread made from Blended drye and wheat flow was also common acorns optional the Industrial Revolution is generally considered to have occurred between 1760 and 1840 but it would take until the early 20th century for a to really kick
the bread business into high gear in 1912 for example an American inventor named Otto Frederick roeter came up with a prototype for a machine that would slice bread speaking of which never hear someone call something the greatest thing since sliced bread and wonder how that got to be the standard against which all human inventions are now judged turns out in 1928 using the invention it took rer 16 years to finish the chilicothe Baking Company became the first manufacturer to ever sell sliced bread and they did it using a slogan that framed The Innovation as the
greatest forward step in the baking industry since bread was wrapped subsequent advertisements by the competitors then tried to up the ante by describing their own products as the greatest thing since sliced bread the phrase Cod Ono was popularized by comedian Red Skelton in 1952 when he defended the emerging medium of television as the greatest thing since sliced bread maybe but you can't eat your TV well not yet sliced bread is a product really blew up in 1930 when a pre-sliced version of Wonderbread was released by the Continental Baking Company the same people who brought you
Twinkies interestingly pre-sliced Wonderbread and Twinkies were both released in 1930 coincidents we think not Twinkie the kid is hiding something Continental promoted the heck out of wonderbrad and people loved it quickly making it and sliced bread in general a staple in supermarkets Across America everything was going great until sliced bread found itself up against its greatest Foe and everyone else is for that matter Adolf Hitler in 1942 at the outset of the US's involvement in World War II rationing important products and materials like gasoline Rubber and sugar became a priority back on the home front
then in 1943 the selling of sliced bread was declared illegal by Claude R wickard the secretary of agriculture and head of the war Foods Administration how did banning's sliced bread help the war effort wickard figured it would help conserve wax paper which was used to wrap sliced bread to keep it fresh he also had his eye on the metal that would be used to build new slicers and arguably even the sugar in the bread itself the deao band did not go over well according to Time magazine in February of that year to us Housewives it
was almost as bad as gas rationing and a whale of a lot more trouble one agitated woman even wrote The New York Times to explain how important sliced bread was to the morale and saness of a household and anyone can understand their lament can you imagine having to cut this damn thing yourself to Plate the mobs New York mayor Fel LaGuardia declared that bakeries which already had slicers could go right on selling sliced bread of course all the Bakers who didn't have slicers were now being told it was illegal to buy them effectively putting them
out of business the government quickly realized their band was the worst thing since unsliced bread and pulled the plug on it after just over for a month based on the decade stretching from 2010 to 2020 the most popular types of bread in the United States are whole wheat white Italian French and sourdough and we all know about Bagels baguett bios chatas pea pumper nickel rye and all the other kinds that you'll likely find at the local supermarket but just because something is popular doesn't mean it's actually the best and there's a near infinite number of
different types of bread in the world for example did you know that in Afghan anistan they have a delicious flatbread called bolani flavored with scallions and fresh herbs its dough is baked with layers of filling made from things like potatoes spinach or lentils and El Salvadorian papusas in grilled cornbread usually wrapped around a filling of pork beans or cheese it's flatbread just like Norwegian Lea but Lea is potato bread usually served with butter cinnamon and sugar and it was a favorite of the Vikings especially Fran Tarkington meanwhile Navajo fry bread is a a symbol of
perseverance to their Nation it's made from white flour blard and sugar which were the same government provided resources the Navajo had to rely on to survive after being forced out of Arizona and resettled and Australian damper bread can be made from just water flour and salt although more modern recipes often include things like butter milk and some extra form of leavening it can be cooked directly in a cast iron pan or even on a stick as you probably remember way back in March of 2020 the United States went into lockdown due to that whole pandemic
thing with nowhere to go and nothing to do many Americans turned to taking up hobbies and one of the most popular was bread making why bread making well some people claimed that it gave them a sense of control during a crisis others found it to be fulfilling and relaxing during a tense and uncertain time and still others just needed something to do whatever the reason bread making became such a popular hobby flower mills couldn't keep up with the demand and then yeast became more scarce than tickets to the eras tour as a result everyone started
making sourdough and it must have made an impression because based on recent Tik Tock Trends bread making is on the rise all over again maybe people are nostalgic for lockdown or maybe it's just a pleasant hobby or maybe as history teaches us making bread is just a fundamental part of Being Human hey anyone else thinking about buying stock in Wonderbread so what do you think what's your bread of choice and have you ever tried baking your own let us know in the comments below and while you're at it check out some of these other weird
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