Carbon dioxide and ethanol vapors produced during yeast fermentation result in bread's air pockets. Bread is usually made from a wheat- flour dough that is cultured with yeast, allowed to rise, and baked in an oven. This is in contrast to parts of South and East Asia, where rice or noodles are the staple. Ruisreikäleipä, a flat rye flour loaf with a holeīread is the staple food of the Middle East, Central Asia, North Africa, Europe, and in European-derived cultures such as those in the Americas, Australia, and Southern Africa. However, there has been some criticism of the effect on nutritional value. As a result, bread can be produced very quickly and at low costs to the manufacturer and the consumer. The process, whose high-energy mixing allows for the use of grain with a lower protein content, is now widely used around the world in large factories. The Chorleywood bread process was developed in 1961 it uses the intense mechanical working of dough to dramatically reduce the fermentation period and the time taken to produce a loaf. The ancient Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans all considered the degree of refinement in the bakery arts as a sign of civilization. The most common source of leavening was to retain a piece of dough from the previous day to use as a form of sourdough starter, as Pliny also reported. 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. Pliny the Elder reported that the Gauls and Iberians used the foam skimmed from beer, called barm, to produce "a lighter kind of bread than other peoples" such as barm cake. Airborne yeasts could be harnessed by leaving uncooked dough exposed to air for some time before cooking. There were multiple sources of leavening available for early bread. The Sumerians were already using ash to supplement the dough as it was baked. The Egyptians refined the process and started adding yeast to the flour. Woman baking bread (circa 2200 BC) LouvreĪn early leavened bread was baked as early as 6000 BC in southern Mesopotamia, cradle of the Sumerian civilization, who may have passed on the knowledge to the Egyptians around 3000 BC. Yeast spores are ubiquitous, including on the surface of cereal grains, so any dough left to rest leavens naturally. Around 10,000 BC, with the dawn of the Neolithic age and the spread of agriculture, grains became the mainstay of making bread. The oldest evidence of bread-making has been found in a 14,500-year-old Natufian site in Jordan's northeastern desert. It is possible that during this time, starch extract from the roots of plants, such as cattails and ferns, was spread on a flat rock, placed over a fire and cooked into a primitive form of flatbread. Evidence from 30,000 years ago in Europe and Australia revealed starch residue on rocks used for pounding plants. Bread is one of the oldest prepared foods.
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