About the bread

Bread, the main product of the grain processing industry, is the result of baking a specially prepared and formed dough at a temperature of 200-250^oC.

Ingredients: carbohydrates (45-49%), water (42-48%), protein (4.5-8.3%), bread ash (approx. 1.5%), fat (about 1%), fibre (0.2-1.5%); the crust is mainly made up of caramelised dextrin.

Depending on the sort of flour used, there are different types of bread, e.g. wheat, wheat-rye, white rye, and wholemeal rye; it can also be made from oat, barley and maize flour. Wholemeal or wholegrain bread (e.g. Graham or Steinmetz bread), commonly known as brown bread, has a high nutritional quality (a rich content of mineral salts and vitamins, especially B1 vitamin). In many regions of the world (for example in the Middle East) bread which looks like flat cakes is consumed.

Bread is one of the staple foods of men, one of the basic ingredients of his diet; it has also had an important cultural, symbolic and cultish role (there are mentions of this in the Old Testament). Already known in ancient times (Babylon, Assyria, Egypt, Israel, Greece, Rome), it was originally made from barley flour and bran, kneaded with water and baked on rocks in the form of flat cakes. Loaves of bread appeared relatively early. Both unleavened and leavened bread, with yeast or sourdough, was consumed. The clay jars or bells, under which they were baked, gave rise to domelike bread ovens, popular in Roman times. Nowadays, box type furnaces are used in bakeries.

Historically speaking

Throughout the centuries bread has been the basic ingredient of the human diet all over the world. Its significance for mankind was so great that it became a symbol for soul food.

The first loaf of bread was made by accident. According to legend, around 2,600 BC an Egyptian slave fell asleep while making traditional biscuits from flour and water. The fire had died out before the cookies were baked but the dough, staying the whole night in the warmth, rose. After baking, it turned out to be much tastier than the hard cakes used so far. During excavations in Egypt, mural paintings depicting the bread baking process were discovered, together with loaves of bread which had been buried with the dead as their food for their journey to the other side. To this very day archaeologists on excavation sites have been discovering traces of gigantic bakeries where huge loaves were baked for the pyramid workers. Bread was also offered to the gods as the fruit of the earth. With time, bread has become a symbol of everything that is precious.

In the Muslim tradition, bread cannot be sold, only offered or exchanged for other goods, due to the fact that it is Allah’s gift.

Nowadays we can still find bread in many religious rituals. In the Christian Eucharist bread is Christ’s body and symbolises food for the soul.

Bread appears in many forms and shapes, which is because of the availability of the products but also due to the customs, beliefs and creativity of the people who have made it. In times of disasters and crop failure it was a staple food. However, it did not disappear from our tables in times of prosperity. How can such a simple food, discovered by chance, have such a great importance? Maybe it is its simplicity that draws us all?

No matter where and how we live, or where our ancestors come from, bread has a crucial place in our lives.