BREAD: A SLICE OF HISTORY

INTERNATIONAL Bread Day is on October 16 – so celebrate by delving deeper into the history of this food staple and perhaps even trying out a recipe or two of African bread.

Whether it’s toasted, slathered in butter and spread with jam, pillowy soft and paired with peanut butter or hollowed out and filled to the brim with tender morsels of lamb and gravysoaked potatoes, bread traverses land and sea, culture and tradition, to serve as a universal food staple.

Indian rice porridge and Chinese cured meat are some of the oldest man-made foods in history.

However, since the dawn of agriculture, bread has adopted a significant role in societies across the globe. Challas, rotis, pitas and pretzels – virtually every culture on Earth has a version of bread to call their own. Evidence from over 30 000 years ago in Europe revealed that a blend of pulverised plant roots made into a dough with water and cooked over an open fire takes a spot near the top of the list of ancient dishes. According to an article published by the BBC in 2018, the bake would have looked like flat bread and tasted similar to modern multi-grain varieties. And much like greasy shawarmas are famous for being the ideal post-pub grub, our ancestors may have used the bread as a means for carrying barbecued meat. Thus, as the BBC concluded, as well as being the oldest bread, it may also have been the earliest version of a sandwich.

Around 10 000 BC, toward the start of the Neolithic Age and the boom in farming, grains became the backbone of bread production.

But how did bread evolve into the light, fluffy versions we have available today? Yeast is the answer.

Before active dry baker’s yeast made its way into our kitchen cabinets, leavening occurred naturally from airborne yeasts that could be harnessed by setting aside the raw, uncovered dough before baking.

Pliny the Elder, a Roman author, wrote that the Gauls (Celtic tribes from a historical region of western Europe) and Iberians (people from the eastern and southern coasts of the Iberian peninsula) used the foam from beer to create “a lighter kind of bread than other people”.

For the regions of the ancient world that drank wine instead of beer, their people mixed grape juice and flour into a paste that was fermented as a source for yeast. But as Pliny also stated, the most popular methods of getting dough to bloom was to save a piece from the day before to use as a form of sour-dough starter.

This method is still used today by some bakers, even though technology has advanced to allow for more efficient, low cost and mass-produced methods of bread making.

There are endless varieties of flours, ingredient measurements, baking methods that have resulted in a broad range of breads varying in taste, shapes, size and texture.

Enjoyed as either sweet or savoury, different additives may be used, like chocolate, spices, fruits, nuts and various fats and chemical additives designed to improve flavour, texture, colour and shelf life.

Nevertheless, we’ve become more familiar with the mass-produced, plastic-clad loaves that line the shelves of supermarkets. As a result, bread has lost some of its appeal.

To reclaim bread as a food that makes every dish more wholesome and delicious, we’re taking it back to our roots by embracing African flavours.

Break bread this International Bread Day with one of these African bread recipes.