Encyclopedia
Bread is a staple food which is prepared by baking,
steaming, or
frying dough. Bread consists minimally of
flour and
water;
salt is present in most cases; and usually a leavening agent such as
yeast is used. Breads may also contain some amounts of
sugar,
spices,
fruit ,
vegetables nuts and seeds , which are often used for decorative and flavoring purposes. There are a wide variety of breads and preferred varieties often vary from region to region.
Fresh bread is prized for its taste and texture, and retaining its freshness is important to keep it appetizing. Bread that has stiffened or dried past its prime is said to be
stale. Modern bread is often wrapped in
paper or
plastic film, or stored in airtight containers such as a
breadbox to keep it fresh longer. Bread that is kept in warm moist environments is prone to the growth of
mold. It becomes stale more quickly in the low temperature of a
refrigerator, although by keeping it cool, mold is less likely to grow. A good way to keep bread fresh is to put it in the freezer, thus allowing it to stay fresh for several weeks.
Usage
Bread can be served ranging anywhere from room temperature to piping hot. Once baked, bread can subsequently be
toasted. Bread is most commonly picked up and eaten with the hands, although some applications of bread are more easily eaten with the aid of a utensil such as a
fork. It can be eaten by itself or as a carrier for another, usually less compact food. Bread may be dunked or dipped into a liquid , topped with various spreads, both sweet and savory, or serve as the enclosure for the ubiquitous
sandwich with any number of meats, cheeses, vegetables or condiments inside. Across the world, bread is the preferred vehicle for many toppings that vary from culture to culture, such as:
Etymology
The word itself,
Old English bread, is common in various forms to many
Germanic languages; such as
German Brot,
Dutch brood, Swedish
bröd, and
Norwegian brød; it has been derived from the root of
brew, but more probably is connected with the root of
break, for its early uses are confined to
broken pieces, or
bits of bread, the
Latin frustum, and it was not until the
12th century that it took the place—as the generic name for bread—of
hlaf , which appears to be the oldest Teutonic name; Old High German
hleib and modern
German Laib, or Finnish
leipä, Estonian
leib, and
Russian ???? are similar .
History
Bread is one of the oldest prepared foods, dating back to the
Neolithic era. The first breads produced were probably cooked versions of a grain-paste, made from ground cereal grains and water, and may have been developed by accidental cooking or deliberate experimentation with water and grain flour. Descendants of these early breads are still commonly made from various grains worldwide, including the
Mexican tortilla,
Indian and
Pakistani
chapati,
Chinese bò bing,
Scottish oatcake, North American
johnnycake, and
Ethiopian
injera. The basic flat breads of this type also formed a staple in the diet of many early civilizations with the
Sumerians eating a type of barley flat cake, and the 12th century BC Egyptians being able to purchase a flat bread called
ta from stalls in the village streets.
The development of leavened bread can probably also be traced to prehistoric times. Yeast spores occur everywhere, including the surface of cereal grains, so any dough left to rest will become naturally leavened. Although leavening is likely of prehistoric origin, the earliest archaeological evidence is from ancient Egypt. Scanning electron microscopy has detected yeast cells in some ancient Egyptian loaves. However, ancient Egyptian bread was made from emmer wheat and has a dense crumb. In cases where yeast cells are not visible, it is difficult to determine whether the bread was leavened by visual examination. As a result, the extent to which bread was leavened in ancient Egypt remains uncertain.
There were multiple sources of leavening available for early bread. Air borne yeasts could be harnessed by leaving uncooked dough exposed to air for some time before cooking.
Pliny the Elder reported that the
Gauls and
Iberians used the foam skimmed from beer to produce "a lighter kind of bread than other peoples". Parts of the ancient world that drank wine instead of beer used a paste composed of grape juice and flour that was allowed to begin fermenting, or wheat bran steeped in wine, as a source for yeast. The most common source of leavening however was to retain a piece of dough from the previous day to utilize as a form of sourdough starter.
Even within antiquity there was a wide variety of breads available. In the Deipnosophistae, the
Greek author Athenaeus describes some of the breads, cakes, cookies, and pastries available in the Classical world. Among the breads mentioned are griddle cakes, honey-and-oil bread, mushroom shaped loaves covered in poppy seeds, and the military specialty of rolls baked on a spit. The type and quality of flour used to produce bread could also vary as noted by Diphilus when he declared "bread made of wheat, as compared with that made of barley, is more nourishing, more digestible, and in every way superior. In order of merit, the bread made from refined [thoroughly sieved] flour comes first, after that bread from ordinary wheat, and then the unbolted, made of flour that has not been sifted."
Within
medieval Europe bread served not only as a staple food but also as part of the table service. In the standard table setting of the day the trencher, a piece of stale bread roughly 6 inches by 4 inches , served as an absorbent plate. At the completion of a meal the trencher could then be eaten, given to the poor, or fed to the dogs. It was not until the
15th Century that trenchers made of wood started to replace the bread variety.
Otto Frederick Rohwedder is considered to be the father of
sliced bread. In 1912 Rohwedder started work on inventing a machine that sliced bread, but bakeries were reluctant to use it since they were concerned the sliced bread would go stale. It was not until 1928, when Rohwedder invented a machine that both sliced and wrapped the bread, that sliced bread caught on. A bakery in Chillicothe, Missouri was the first to use this machine to produce sliced bread.
For generations, white bread was considered the preferred bread of the rich while the poor ate dark bread. However, the connotations reversed in the
20th century with dark bread becoming preferred as having superior
nutritional value while white bread became associated with lower class ignorance of nutrition.
Another major advance happened in 1961 with the development of the Chorleywood Bread Process which used the intense mechanical working of dough to dramatically reduce the fermentation period and the time taken to produce a loaf. This process is now widely used around the world.
Recently, domestic
breadmakers that automate the process of making bread are becoming popular in the home.
Cultural and Political Importance
As a foodstuff of great historical and contemporary importance, in many cultures bread has a significance beyond mere nutrition. The Lord's Prayer, for example, contains the line 'Give us today our daily bread'; here, 'bread' is commonly understood to mean necessities in general. In
Israel the most usual phrase in work related demonstrations is "lehem, avoda" [bread, work], and during the
1960s, the
hippie community used the term bread as a euphemism for
money. The word bread is now commonly used around the world in
English speaking countries as a synonym for money. In part, derived from the rhyming slang "
Bread and honey". The cultural importance of 'bread' goes beyond slang, however, to serve as a metaphor for basic necessities and living conditions in general. A 'bread-winner' is a household's main economic contributor and has little to do with actual bread-provision, for example.
The political significance of bread is considerable. In Britain in the
nineteenth century the inflated price of bread due to the Corn Laws caused major political and social divisions, and was central to debates over free trade and protectionism. The Assize of Bread and Ale in the
thirteenth century showed the importance of bread in medieval times by setting heavy punishments for short-changing bakers, and the foodstuff appeared in
Magna Carta a century later.
Types
Bread is a popular
food in Western and most other societies such as Pakistan and India, however South-East Asian societies typically prefer
rice. It is often made from a
wheat-
flour dough that is cultured with yeast, allowed to rise, and finally baked in an
oven. Owing to its high levels of
gluten ,
common wheat is the most common grain used for the preparation of bread, but bread is also made from the flour of other wheat species ,
rye,
barley,
maize , and
oats, usually, but not always, in combination with wheat flour. Although common wheat is best suited for making highly-risen white bread, other wheat species are capable of giving a good crumb. Spelt bread continues to be widely consumed in Germany, and emmer bread was a staple food in ancient Egypt.
Gallery
Image:Strucla sweet bread02.jpg|European sweetbread
Image:Four loaves.jpg|Four loaves
Image:French bread DSC09293.jpg|French bread
Image:Breads and rolls.jpg|Breads and Bread Rolls at a bakery
Image:Continental italian bread.jpg|Continental Italian Bread
Image:Tin vienna bread.jpg|Tin Vienna Bread
Image:Bread in a traditional oven.JPG|Bread in a traditional oven
Image:Brood.jpg|Pre-sliced bread
Image:Bread rolls.jpg|Bread rolls
Image:Pain aux noix.jpg|Pain aux noix
Image:Various grains.jpg|A cereal grain
Composition and Chemistry
Formulation
The amount of water and flour are the most significant measurements in a bread recipe, as they affect texture and crumb the most. Professional bakers use a system of percentages known as
Bakers' Percentage in their recipe formulations, and measure ingredients by weight instead of by volume. Measurement by weight is much more accurate and consistent than measurement by volume, especially for the dry ingredients.
Flour is always 100%, and the rest of the ingredients are a percent of that amount by weight. Common table bread in the U.S. uses approximately 50% water, resulting in a finely textured, light, bread. Most artisan bread formulas contain anywhere from 60 to 75% water. In yeast breads, the higher water percentages result in more CO
2 bubbles, and a coarser bread crumb. One pound of flour will yield a standard loaf of bread, or two french loaves.
Flour
Flour is a product made from grain that has been ground into a powdery consistency. It is flour that provides the primary structure to the final baked bread. Commonly available flours are made from rye, barley, maize, and other grains, but it is wheat flour that is most commonly used for breads. Each of these grains provides starch and protein to the final product.
Wheat flour in addition to its starch contains three water soluble proteins groups, albumin, globulin, proteoses, and two non-water soluble proteins groups, glutenin and gliadin. When flour is mixed with water the water-soluble proteins dissolve, leaving the glutenin and gliadin to form the structure of the resulting dough. When worked by kneading, the glutenin forms strands of long thin chainlike molecules while the shorter gliadin forms bridges between the stands of glutenin. The resulting networks of strands produced by these two proteins is known as
gluten. Gluten development improves if the dough is allowed to autolyse.
Liquids
Water, or some other liquid, is used to form the flour into a paste or dough. The volume of liquid required varies between recipes, but a ratio of 1 cup of liquid to 3 cups of flour is common for yeast breads while recipes that use steam as the primary leavening method may have a liquid content in excess of one part liquid to one part flour by volume. In addition to water, other types of liquids that may be used include dairy products, fruit juices, or beer. In addition to the water in each of these they also bring additional sweeteners, fats, and or leavening components.
Leavening
Leavening is the process of adding gas to a dough before or during baking to produce a lighter, more easily chewed bread. Most bread consumed in the West is leavened. However, unleavened breads have symbolic importance in
Judaism and
Christianity. Jews consume unleavened breads such as
Matzo during
Passover. They are also used in the Christan liturgy when they perform the
Eucharist, a rite derived from the
Last Supper when
Jesus broke bread with his disciples during a
Passover Seder.
Chemical leavening
A simple technique for leavening bread is the use of gas-producing chemicals. There are two common methods. The first is to use baking powder or a
self-rising flour that includes baking powder. The second is to have an acidic ingredient such as buttermilk and add
baking soda. The reaction of the acid with the soda produces gas.
Chemically-leavened breads are called
quick breads and
soda breads. This technique is commonly used to make
muffins and sweet breads such as
banana bread.
Yeast leavening
Many breads are leavened by
yeast, a type of single-celled
fungus. The yeast used for leavening bread is
Saccharomyces cerevisiae is a species [i] of budding [i] yeast [i]. ...
, the same species used for brewing alcoholic beverages. This yeast ferments
carbohydrates in the flour and any
sugar, producing
carbon dioxide. Most bakers in the U.S. leaven their doughs with commercially produced baker's yeast. Baker's yeast has the advantage of producing uniform, quick, and reliable results, because it is obtained from a pure culture.
Both the baker's yeast, and the sourdough method of baking bread follow the same pattern. Water is mixed with flour, salt and the leavening agent . Other additions are not necessary to bake bread, but often used. The mixed dough is then allowed to rise one or more times , then loaves are formed and the bread is baked in an
oven.
Many breads are made from a
straight dough, which means that all of the ingredients are combined in one step, and the dough baked after the rising time. Alternatively, doughs can be made with the
starter method, when some of the flour, water, and the leavening are combined a day or so ahead of baking, and allowed to ferment overnight. On the day of the baking, the rest of the ingredients are added, and the rest of the process is the same as that for straight doughs. This produces a more flavorful bread with better texture. Many bakers see the starter method as a compromise between the highly reliable results of baker's yeast, and the flavor/complexity of a longer fermentation. It also allows the baker to use only a minimal amount of baker's yeast, which was scarce and expensive when it first became available.
Sourdough
The sour taste of
sourdoughs actually comes not from the yeast, but from a
lactobacillus, with which the yeast lives in
symbiosis. The lactobacillus feeds on the byproducts of the yeast fermentation, and in turn makes the culture go sour by excreting
lactic acid, which protects it from spoiling . All breads used to be sourdoughs, and the leavening process was not understood until the 19th century, when with the advance of microscopes, scientists were able to discover the microbes that make the dough rise. Since then, strains of yeast have been selected and cultured mainly for reliability and quickness of fermentation. Billions of cells of these strains are then packaged and marketed as "Baker's Yeast". Bread made with baker's yeast is not sour because of the absence of the lactobacillus. Bakers around the world quickly embraced baker's yeast for it made baking simple and so allowed for more flexibility in the bakery's operations. It made baking quick as well, allowing bakeries to make fresh bread from scratch as often as three times a day. While European bakeries kept producing sourdough breads, in the U.S., sourdough baking was widely replaced by baker's yeast, and only recently has that country seen the rebirth of sour-vinegar dough in artisan bakeries.
Sourdough breads are most often made with a
sourdough starter . A sourdough starter is a culture of yeast and lactobacillus. It is essentially a dough-like or pancake-like flour/water mixture in which the yeast and lactobacilli live. A starter can be maintained indefinitely by periodically discarding a part of it and
refreshing it by adding fresh flour and water. There are starters owned by bakeries and families that are several human generations old, much revered for creating a special taste or texture. Starters can be obtained by taking a piece of another starter and growing it, or they can be made from scratch. There are hobbyist groups on the web who will send their starter for a stamped, self-addressed envelope, and there are even mailorder companies that sell different starters from all over the world. An acquired starter has the advantage to be more proven and
established than from-scratch starters.
There are other ways of sourdough baking and culture maintenance. A more traditional one is the process that was followed by peasant families throughout Europe in past centuries. The family would bake on a fixed schedule, perhaps once a week. The starter was saved from the previous week's dough. The starter was mixed with the new ingredients, the dough was left to rise, then a piece of it was saved . The rest was formed into loaves which were marked with the family sign , and taken to the communal oven to bake. These communal ovens over time evolved into what we know today as bakeries, when certain people specialized in bread baking, and with time enhanced the process so far as to be able to mass produce cheap bread for everyone in the village.
San Francisco sourdoughs
The most famous sourdough bread made in the U.S. is the
San Francisco Sourdough, which in contrast to the majority of the country has remained in continuous production for nearly 150 years, with some bakeries able to trace their starters back to California's territorial period. It is a white bread, characterized by a pronounced sourness , so much so that the dominant strain of lactobacillus in sourdough starters was named
Lactobacillus sanfrancisco.
Steam leavening
The rapid expansion of steam produced during baking leavens the bread, which is as simple as it is unpredictable. The best known steam-leavened bread is the
popover. Steam-leavening is unpredictable since the steam is not produced until the bread is baked.
Steam leavening happens regardless of the rising agents
- The rising agent generates carbon dioxide - or already contains air bubbles.
- The heat vaporises the water from the inner surface of the bubbles within the dough.
- The steam expands and makes the bread rise.
It is actually the main factor in the rise.
CO2 generation, on its own, is too small to account for the rise. Heat kills bacteria or yeast at an early stage, so the CO
2 generation is stopped.
Bacterial leavening
Salt-risen bread employs a form of bacterial leavening that does not require yeast. Although the leavening action is not always consistent, and requires close attention to the incubating conditions, this bread is making a comeback due to its unique cheese-like flavor and fine texture. .
Fats or shortenings
Fats such as butter, vegetable oils, lard, or that contained in eggs affects the development of gluten in breads by coating and lubricating the individual strands of protein and also helping hold the structure together. If too much fat is included in a bread dough, the lubrication effect will cause the protein structures to divide. A fat content of approximately 3% by weight is the concentration that will produce the greatest leavening action.
This effect is used most popularly in
cookies, in that increased fat - typically shortening - causes a harder cookie while increased flour causes a softer cookie . As it is typically not acceptable to have harder bread, this effect is usually not available for use in breads.
In addition to their effects on leavening, fats also serve to tenderize the breads they are used in and also help to keep the bread fresh longer after baking.
Breads across different cultures
There are many variations on the basic recipe of bread, including
pizza, chapatis,
tortillas,
baguettes,
brioche,
pitas, lavash,
biscuits,
pretzels,
naan,
bagels, puris, and many other variations.
- In Britain and the United States, the most widely consumed type of bread is soft-textured with a thin crust and is sold ready-sliced in packages. It is usually eaten with the crust, but some eaters or preparers may remove the crust due to a personal preference or style of serving, as for high tea.
- In South Asia , Roti or Chapati, types of flat breads, are commonly used. A variant uses mustard flour rather than white flour. Another variant is Puri, a thin flat bread which is fried rather than baked and puffs up while cooked. Paratha is another variation on Roti. Nan, however, is baked in brick ovens and is rarely prepared at home. White and brown breads are also very common, but not as much as Roti.
- Jews have traditionally baked challah, a type of egg bread with a thin, hard crust and a soft, well-leavened center. It is made by wrapping plaits of dough and then lightly baking them in an oven. Challah is sometimes sweetened using honey and sometimes includes raisins.
- In Scotland, another form of bread called plain bread is also consumed. Plain bread loaves are noticeably taller and thinner, with burned crusts at only the top and bottom of the loaf. Plain bread has a much firmer texture than English and American pan bread. Plain Bread is becoming less common as the bread consumed elsewhere in Britain is becoming more popular with consumers.
- In France, pan bread is known as pain de mie and is used only for toast
...
or for making
stuffing; standard bread has a thick crust and often has large bubbles of air inside. It is often baked three times daily and is sold totally unwrapped to keep the crust crisp. Some fancy breads contain
walnuts, or are encrusted with
poppy seeds.
- Focaccia is quite popular in Italy, and is known in Provence as fougasse or as fouace in the rest of southern France. It is usually seasoned with olive oil and herbs, and often either topped with cheese or stuffed with meat or vegetables. Focaccia doughs are similar in style and texture to pizza doughs.
- White bread is made from flour containing only the central core of the grain .
- Brown bread is made with endosperm and 10% bran.
- Whole meal bread contains the whole of the wheat grain .
- Wheat germ bread has added wheat germ for flavouring.
- Whole grain bread is white bread with added whole grains to increase the fibre content.
- Granary bread is bread made from granary flour, trademarked to Hovis
...
made from malted white or brown flour, wheat germ and whole grains.
- Stottie cake is a thick, flat, round loaf. Stotties are common in the North East of England. Although it is called a cake, it is a type of bread.
- Being the simplest, cheapest and most basic type of food, bread is often referred as a metaphor for "food" in general, in some languages and dialects, such as Greek.
- Christian traditional societies , used to respect bread since Jesus symbolised his body with it. The sign of the cross was performed with the knife on the bread's surface, before the loaf was cut. Sometimes it was considered a sin to desecrate bread .
Bread in Germany
Germany has the widest variety of bread available to its residents. About 6,000 types of breads and approximately 1200 different types of pastry and rolls are produced in about 17,000 bakeries and another 10,000 in-shop bakeries.
82 million people consume around 1,100,000 tons of bread, 5,024,000,000 rolls and 454,000,000
pretzels per year. This is a world record. Bread is served with almost every meal. A German breakfast typically consists of sliced bread or
Semmeln with either cold cuts, cheese etc. or jam, honey and other sweet toppings. Supper, traditionally, usually just consists of cold cuts and cheese , although this tradition is rapidly changing. Bread is not considered a side dish and is considered important for a healthy diet.
Germany's top ten in bread are:
- Rye-wheat
- Toast bread
- whole-grain
- Wheat-rye
- White bread
- Multi-grain
- Rye
- Sunflower seed
- Pumpkin seed
- Onion bread
Especially the darker kinds of bread like
Vollkornbrot or
Schwarzbrot are typical of German cuisine. Internationally well known is
Pumpernickel which is steamed for a very long time, it is one kind of dark bread from Germany but not representative. Most German breads are made with sourdough. Whole grain is preferred for high fibre. Germans use almost all available types of grain for their breads — wheat, rye, barley, spelt, oats, sorghum, corn and rice. Some breads are even made from potato flour.
Bread is a very important part of the
Scandinavian table. It is usually enjoyed at home, in the workplace or in Danish
restaurants and is usually based primarily on
rugbrød is the most commonly used bread [i] in Denmark [i]. ...
, which is unleavened rye bread. It is a dark, heavy bread which is often bought pre-sliced, in varieties from light-coloured
rye, to very dark, and refined to
whole grain. It forms the basis of
smørrebrød, which is closely related to the Swedish
smörgås, literally 'spread bread' . Traditional toppings include
sild, which are pickled herrings , slightly sweeter than Dutch or
German herrings; thinly-sliced
cheese in many varieties; sliced
cucumber,
tomato and boiled eggs;
leverpostej, which is
pork liver-paste; dozens of types of cured or processed meat in thin slices, or smoked fish such as
salmon; mackerel in tomato sauce; pickled
cucumber; boiled egg, and rings of
red onion. Mayonnaise mixed with
peas and diced
carrot, remoulade or other thick sauces often top the layered open
sandwich, which is usually eaten with
utensils. It is custom to pass the dish of sliced breads around the table, and then to pass around each dish of toppings, and people help themselves. Hundreds of combinations and varieties of smørrebord are available.
A famous and very old restaurant in
Copenhagen's historic Nyhavn harbour, Ida Davidsen, serves up many imaginative combinations, and the fridge in a typical Danish home will often be stocked with toppings for
rugbrødsmad, or "rye bread meal", which is a way of saying "a plain normal lunch". Denmark has strong traditions of special types of food eaten at particular times of the year, such as smoked eel with slices of a sort of scrambled-egg loaf eaten on rye bread at New Year, accompanied by beer. Other types of bread are sold in
supermarkets and in
bakeries, which are important shops in every town and shopping centre. Many women still bake at home, particularly
boller, which are small bread rolls, and often the traditional
kringle, which is a long cooked dough with currants and a
brown sugar and
butter 
