The History, Overview, and Types of Bread

Bread Overview


Bread is the staple food for the Middle East, Indian Cultures and Europe, which is usually prepared by baking, steaming or frying the dough. Bread is made up of flour, water and salt, usually there is a leavening agent such as yeast. Some bread contains sugar, spices, fruit (such as raisins, pumpkin or bananas), vegetables (like onions or zucchini) nuts and seeds. Most bread is either wrapped in paper or plastics, or stored in an airtight container such as a breadbox to keep fresh longer. If bread is kept in a warm moist environment it is prone to grow mold although keeping it in the refrigerator makes the bread go stale quicker but does not grow mold.

History

Bread is the one of the oldest prepared foods, dating back to the Neolithic era. The first bread produced were probably cooked versions of grain-paste, made from ground cereal grains and water and developed by accident. The development of leavened bread can probably be traced back to prehistoric times. Yeast spores occur everywhere, including on the surface of cereal grains, so any dough that is left to rest will become naturally leavened. Parts of the ancient world that would drink wine instead of beer would use a paste composed of grape juice and flour that was allowed to begin fermenting or wheat bran steeped in wine, as a source of yeast. The most common source of leavening 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 like griddle cakes, honey and oil breads, mushroom shaped loaves covered in poppy seeds, and the military specialty of rolls bakes on a spit. Breads that were made of wheat compared to the ones made of barley are more nourishing, and more digestible and in every way more superior.

Otto Rohwedder is considered to the father of sliced bread. In 1912 he started to work on inventing a machine that would slice bread but the bakeries were reluctant to use it since they thought that sliced bread would go stale quicker. In 1928 he invented a machine that both sliced and wrapped the bread.

In 1961, The Chorleywood Bread Process developed which used the intense mechanical working or dough to dramatically reduce the fermentation period and time taken to produce a loaf or bread. This process is now widely used around the world.

Composition and Chemistry

The amount of water and flour are the most significant measurements in bread making. Professional bakers use a system of percentages known as Bakers’ Percentage, and measure ingredients by weight instead of volume. Flour is always 100% and the rest of the ingredients are a percent of the mount by weight. The US Common table bread is approximately 50% water, resulting in a finely textured, lighter bread. Most artisan bread formulas contain anywhere from 60-75% water. In yeast breads the higher the water percentage results in more CO2 bubbles and a courser bread.

Wheat flour is the most commonly used in making bread. Wheat flour contains three water soluble proteins grouns, albumin, globulin and preteoses and two non-water proteins. When the flour is mixed with water the water soluble proteins dissolve, leaving the glutenin and gliadin to from the structure of the dough. When kneading the glutenins forms strands of ling thin chainlike molecules while shorter glidins forms bridges between the stands of glutenin. The resulting network of strands produced by these two proteins is called gluten.

You need some type of liquid to add to the flour to make a paste. Commonly used is water but you can also use dairy products, fruit juices or beer.

By adding gas to the dough is called leavening which makes the bread lighter and more easily chewed after baking. There are chemical leavening agents like buttermilk or baking soda or baker’s yeast.


Types of Bread

There are many types of the basic recipe of bread including pizza, chapaties, tortillas, baguettes, bruiche, pitas, lavash, biscuits, pretzels naan, bagels, puris and many many more.
-In Spain bread is called pan. There is a region in Spain called “Tierra del Pan” (land of the bread).
-In Britian and the US the mostly consumed type of bread is soft textured with a thin crust and sold already sliced.
-South Asia flat breads are commonly used. They use mustard flour instead of white flour. It is usually baked in a brick oven, rarely prepared at home.
-Morocco and West North Africa round bread which is about four inches tall is usually eating with Mediterranean’s watery cuisines. They also have a thick chewy fried bread which is smothered in oil before fried.
-Italy has Focaccia which is usually seasoned with herbs and olive oil and topped with cheese.
Germany and Chile are the two biggest consumers per capita of bread.