When was bread first made?
Every country, every part of the world, has some food that is peculiar to it. But there is one food that is eaten wherever man livesand that is some form of bread. This is because man has realized the value of cereal grains in his diet from the earliest days. In fact, early man first chewed grain seeds in order to get energy from this food. Later, he crushed grain to a flour between stones, as the Egyptians did more than 3,000 years before Christ. They added water to form a dough, shaped it into flat cakes, and baked it either in an oven hollowed out of the ground and lined with clay, or on the outside of earthenware jars which were heated from the inside. Such bread was very coarse and heavy; it contained no leavening agent to make the dough rise and so produce light, tender bread.
Whilst no-one is absolutely sure as to when the first bread was made, man has been eating, albeit a crude form of flatbread, since 10,000 BC. Certainly the ancient Egyptians were making leavened (raised) bread with yeast by 3000BC and it is thought that the workers who built the pyramids were paid in bread. Not surprising that it has earned the title staff of life. Indeed, for many throughout the ages, bread has been a staple of their diet and it was so important, that laws concerning bread have existed for hundreds of years.
There is one food that is available in all the countries of the world & that is some form of bread. Man has realised the value of cereal grains in his diet from the earliest days. Infact, early man first chewed grain seeds in order to get energy from them. Later, he crushed grain to a flour between stones, as the Egyptians did more than 3000 years before Christ. They added water to form a dough, shaped it into flat cakes, & baked it either in an oven hollowed out of the ground & lined with clay, or on the outside of earthenware jars which were heated from inside. Such bread was very coarse & heavy as it did not contain an leavening agent. The leavening agent is used in the bread to make a dough rise & to get light, tender bread. The early Hebrews used sour dough as a leaven, but the Egyptians were the first to discover that sour dough contained yeast. They were able to segregate this plant & so became the first people to produce a “yeast raised” bread. The Hebrews baked their bread in
