The first breads of humanity?


The first breads of humanity?
I have already told you in a previous article the beautiful story of the croissants, but do you know what it is about the bread, who "invented" it, where and when?

Well, you can imagine that recent discoveries, in 2018, have profoundly changed the history of bread.
10 K 5/5 (14 reviews)
Grade this page:
Keywords for this post:HistoryBreadPrehistoryExcavationsExploration
Last modified on: February 16th 2019
For this post: Comment Follow Send to a friend
The first breads of humanity?
Until recently I had, and maybe you do too, the story of the Egyptians (-4000 BC), who used to eat mainly some kind of pancakes, made with a cereal porridge and then cooked in the oven. One day, according to the legend, a cake was forgotten, fermented and leavened, and instead of throwing it away, they decided to cook it anyway. Surprise, it was better than the patties. Bread had just been invented.

boulangers et pain ancienne égypte


I love these beautiful stories or legends, easy to remember and always well timed. How they have survived the centuries? Mystery, but they are there.

So, the bread is the Egyptians, around 4000 BC? Not so simple... One could say that for bread to be invented, agriculture had to be invented, and in particular the cultivation of cereals?

But agriculture began around 11,000 years ago in the Fertile Crescent, an area that straddles Iraq, Turkey, Jordan, Israel, Egypt and Iran of today.

Dorothy Garrod

In 1928, Dorothy Garrod, a British archaeologist, discovered an archaeological culture of hunter-gatherers from the Middle East who lived between 14,000 and 11,000 years ago. She named them "Natoufians" from the site of Ouadi-en-Natouf in the West Bank.


amidonnier

The Natufians did not practice agriculture, they did not plant or harvest, but on the other hand they picked and collected cereals of the time (starch, einkorn, ...) when they found them. We also discovered in their tools what seems to be the ancestor of the sickle, made of flint.

These seeds were crushed between 2 stones or in mortars, then roasted and eaten. Long before the Natufians, around the Lake of Tiberias in Israel, traces of a fireplace with wild barley and roasted starch were found in a cave dating back to 22,000 years ago.

What about bread?


The Natufians at one time settled in the Wadi rum, the black desert of Jordan, at the time fertile and watered.

Wadi rum site de Shubayca 1


In this desert, on the excavation site of Shubayqa 1, we found a hearth, in the center of the photo, not yet an oven, with remains of cooking, burned, which have crossed the millennia.

restes de pain au microscope électronique

After analysis with an electron microscope and dating with carbon 14, it appears that these remains are the cooking of pasta made of kneaded wild cereal flour. Flours that were made by grinding, then sieving or winnowing. The dough obtained with the addition of water, was cooked in a fireplace, it rose very little, it was a kind of flat bread, but it was already bread, the first breads in the history of mankind probably, 14 000 years ago.

Many questions remain unanswered after this extraordinary discovery, and in particular if the fact that the bread has little leavened is a choice of the Natoufians or an emergency of the time (we had to leave, and quickly)? Which, by the way, makes a beautiful parallel with the flight of the Hebrews from Egypt and unleavened bread, millennia later.

From all this, I think we should remember several things:

  1. Baking preceded agriculture, and not the other way around, in other words, the first men did not wait to cultivate cereals to make bread, they first baked, and only then did they plant and harvest cereals, thousands of years later.
  2. The first bakers in the history of mankind were therefore probably Natufians, in present-day Jordan.
  3. Bread is a food that has accompanied humans since the dawn of time, it is the source of life and evolution of our species, we must never forget it.



If you want to know more about it, I invite you to listen to the episode of Jean Claude Ameisen's fascinating program on France-Inter "Sur les épaules de Darwin" (On Darwin's shoulders) dedicated to the history of bread, only in french.

Lasts posts
Travel cakes
Travel cakes
You may have come across the term "travel cakes" ("gateaux de voyage" in french) for certain pastries, so let's take a look at what they're all about.
January 27th 20252,218
The aromatic power of sugar
The aromatic power of sugar
In the kitchen, sugar doesn't just sweeten, it also has an exceptional ability to capture flavors. Combined with aromatic ingredients, such as citrus zest, it acts as a veritable sponge for aromas. By taking the time to let the sugar soak up the flavors, you can transform your desserts, making...
December 25th 20242,5545
The little trap of thick cream
The little trap of thick cream
When you need to add cream to a recipe, you might be wondering: thick (heavy) cream or liquid cream? In most cases, there's no big difference: you can use either. But there is one exception, and that's when the cream needs to be cooked, for a sauce for example, and here the difference between...
December 13th 20243,1195
Sauce and salad: When and how to mix them?
Sauce and salad: When and how to mix them?
When dressing a salad, there's a kind of golden rule: add the dressing very shortly before serving, especially if your salad contains crunchy elements such as croutons or fresh vegetables, which will retain their crunchiness or crispiness. But, as is often the case in the kitchen, there are...
November 29th 20243,2825
No need to boil gelatin
No need to boil gelatin
Gelatin is a magical ingredient for making light, creamy, structured desserts, yet it's often misused in the kitchen. A common mistake in some recipes is the idea that it needs to be boiled for it to work properly, but this is a mistake indeed: gelatin melts at a much lower temperature, around...
November 21th 20243,1835
Other pages you may also like
85 grams of eggs?
85 grams of eggs?
Some time ago, I already spoke to you about the difference between baking and pastry-making, I emphasized, among other things, the precision of pastry-making which requires grams, cm, degrees and minutes. That's why, on the one hand, you have baking and cooking, where a certain tolerance is...
November 26th 201850 K4.6
The color of the bread crumb
The color of the bread crumb
When you go to buy bread, at your baker's, at the time of the choice, if you hesitate of course, you will undoubtedly be very sensitive to the color of the crust, and you will be right. The color of the crust, from golden, to sometimes very dark, deep brown almost black, depending on the maturity...
April 30th 202216 K4.6
How to zest a fruit?
How to zest a fruit?
You will have no doubt noticed that many recipes call for the zest of citrus fruit. The zest is that outer layer of the skin which adds so much flavour to a dish. There are many different ways to peel off the zest and various tools are available. Here is a summary of the “dos and don'ts” of...
November 5th 201343 K3.8
The mock CAP baker's certificate exam
The mock CAP baker's certificate exam
The next instalment in my life as an apprentice baker at the French INBP professional school. I’m now halfway through training and it’s still as exciting as ever, and exhausting – but maybe I’m just getting old, or both… Anyway, a few days ago we had to go through the mock CAP exam. A sort...
May 1st 201818 K4.4
When should you salt?
When should you salt?
In the kitchen, we salt very frequently, almost all the time, and we must be careful because this salt can influence the texture of what you are cooking. I'm not going to talk about the amount of salt here, that's for another time, but rather about : When do you salt?
August 13th 201914 K4.5
Post a comment or question
Posted by:
I am not a leaving thing
Follow this page
If you are interested in this page, you can "follow" it, by entering your email address here. You will then receive a notification immediately each time the page is modified or a new comment is added. Please note that you will need to confirm this following.
I am not a leaving thing
Note: We'll never share your e-mail address with anyone else.
Alternatively: you can subscribe to the mailing list of cooling-ez.com , you will receive a e-mail for each new recipe published on the site.

Back to top of page