Bread, in one form or another, has been one of the principal forms of food for man from earliest times.

The trade of the baker, then, is one of the oldest crafts in the world. Loaves and rolls have been found in ancient Egyptian tombs. In Egyptian galleries you can see actual loaves which were made and baked over 5,000 years ago. Also on display are grains of wheat which ripened in those ancient summers under the Pharaohs. Wheat has been found in pits where human settlements flourished 8,000 years ago. Bread, both leavened and unleavened, is mentioned in the Bible many times. The ancient Greeks and Romans knew bread for a staple food and then people argued whether white or brown bread was best.

All through the ancient days, bread and bakers were held in the highest respect; this respect lives on to our times, for what would we do without our bakers?

The Dawn of Bread Making

When ancient man discovered a food which would keep through the winter months, and could be multiplied in the summer, it could be said that civilization began. He might have a reasonably safe store of food to carry him over, which would give him time to develop other useful skills besides hunting, fishing and cattle-herding.

The Greeks and Romans liked their bread white; colour was one of the main tests for quality at the time of Pliny (A.D. 70). Those who think the craze for white bread is a modern fad should note this. Pliny wrote:

The wheat of Cyprus is swarthy and produces a dark bread, for which reason it is generally mixed with the white wheat of Alexandria'.

The Romans enjoyed several kinds of bread, with interesting names. There was oyster bread (to be eaten with oysters); 'artolaganus' or cakebread; 'speusticus' or 'hurry bread'. There was oven bread, tin bread, Parthian bread. There were rich breads made with milk, eggs and butter, but these of course, were only for the wealthy and privileged people.

The trade of the baker, then, is one of the oldest crafts in the world.

Middle Ages

In historical times, there were constantly recurring periods of famine, due to not enough, or too much rain, or frosts, and other natural causes.

The ruling classes, knowing that rebellion often followed famine, did their utmost to keep the price of bread from rising too high. In England, laws regulating its price were passed during the reign of King John (1202). Not only did the law fix the price, but it strictly allocated that price between cost of material and an allowance for necessary charges to the baker.

Great efforts were made to keep the price of bread low, to maintain good quality, and to prevent corruption and dishonesty.

The bakers liked to keep the 'mystery' of the trade to themselves and to prevent unlicensed people from starting up. If a young man wanted to become a baker, he had to serve an apprenticeship of seven years. The law supported the bakers in preserving their craft to themselves, and there were statutes published with various penalties for infringement. In those days there were certain dishonest persons in the trade. In 1298 heavy fines were inflicted on bakers for selling short weight bread. There are the most stringent regulations about the weight of bread today.

Courtesy of National Archive and Botham & Sons.

Recent Times

The invention of the steam-engine changed the industries and the lives of the people except, strangely enough, the milling of flour.

Millers everywhere continued to use the ancient methods of wind and watermills. In the middle of the nineteenth century, a Swiss engineer designed a mill using rollers made of steel which operated one above the other. It was called the reduction roller-milling system, and these machines soon became accepted all over Europe and in Britain.

Meanwhile, the development of the North American prairies, ideally suited to grow wheat, provided ample grain for the fast-growing populations at the time of the Industrial Revolution. This, together with the invention of the roller-milling system, meant that for the first time in history, whiter flour (and therefore bread) could be produced at a price which brought it within the reach of everyone - not just the rich.

During periods of famine or other calamities during history, the governments of the time were quick to protect the people's bread. For instance, in the First World War, many regulations were passed controlling the bread trade. Experiments began to solve problems, like keeping bread fresh for troops in the trenches, the conservation of supplies and the stoppage of waste. Substitutes for wheat, such as mixtures of peas, arrowroot, parsnips, beans, lentils, maize, rice, barley and oats were used in bread experiments.

When you see the beautiful loaves on sale today in all their variety of shape, texture, and flavour, still at a comparative low price think for a moment of the days, a few hundred years ago, when it was thought that 'poor and common people should eat poor and common bread', and only the rich should be able to enjoy the real white wheaten loaf.