THE HISTORY OF BREAD
[Illustration: EGYPTIANS THRESHING CORN BY HAND.]
[Illustration: EGYPTIANS WINNOWING AND STORING CORN IN SACKS, AND A
SCRIBE NOTING THE QUANTITIES.]
The History of Bread
From Pre-historic to Modern Times
BY
JOHN ASHTON
[Illustration]
LONDON
THE RELIGIOUS TRACT SOCIETY
4 Bouverie Street and 65 St. Paul’s Churchyard, E.C.
1904
LONDON:
PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED.
DUKE STREET, STAMFORD STREET, S.E., AND GREAT WINDMILL STREET, W.
PREFACE
It seems extraordinary, but it is, nevertheless, a fact, that, up to
this present time, there has not been written, in the English language,
a History of _Bread_, although it is called ‘the Staff of Life,’ and
really is a large staple of food.
There have been small _brochures_ on the subject, and large volumes on
the Chemistry of Bread, its making and baking; and long controversies
as to the merits of whole meal, and other kindred questions, but no
History. It is to remedy this that I have written this book, in which I
have endeavoured to trace Bread from Pre-historic to Modern Times.
JOHN ASHTON.
CONTENTS
PAGE.
CHAPTER I. PRE-HISTORIC BREAD 13
” II. CORN IN EGYPT AND ASSYRIA 20
” III. BREAD IN PALESTINE 29
” IV. THE BREAD OF THE CLASSIC LANDS 43
” V. BREAD IN EASTERN LANDS 56
” VI. BREAD IN EUROPE AND AMERICA 69
” VII. EARLY ENGLISH BREAD 83
” VIII. HOW GRAIN BECOMES FLOUR 103
” IX. THE MILLER AND HIS TOLLS 114
” X. BREAD-MAKING AND BAKING 123
” XI. OVENS ANCIENT AND MODERN 136
” XII. THE RELIGIOUS USE OF BREAD 142
” XIII. GINGER BREAD AND CHARITY BREAD 150
” XIV. BREAD RIOTS 162
” XV. LEGENDS ABOUT BREAD 170
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
EGYPTIANS THRESHING CORN BY HAND; WINNOWING
AND STORING IT IN SACKS, AND A SCRIBE NOTING
THE QUANTITIES _Frontispiece._
_Page_.
PRE-HISTORIC MILLS AND CORN-CRUSHERS 17
EGYPTIAN REAPERS 20
EGYPTIANS STACKING CORN 21
EGYPTIANS CARRYING GRAIN TO THE THRESHING-FLOOR
AND THRESHING 23
EGYPTIAN METHODS OF BREAD-MAKING 25
ASSYRIAN BREAD-MAKING 26
EGYPTIAN CAKE SELLER AND BREAD 27
A PALESTINE HAND-MILL 36
DEMETER AND TRIPTOLEMUS 45
PITHOI FOUND AT HISSARLIK 47
ETRUSCAN WOMEN POUNDING GRAIN 49
A BAKE-HOUSE AT POMPEII 51
ROMAN METHODS OF BREAD-MAKING 53
A BAKER’S SHOP (_from Pompeii_) 54
CHINESE METHOD OF HUSKING GRAIN 59
EARLY SCANDINAVIAN BAKERIES 70-71
A MEDIÆVAL BAKERY 79
THE ARMS OF THE WHITE BAKERS 86
THE ARMS OF THE BROWN BAKERS 87
AN EARLY BAKERY 91
A POST MILL 104
A WATER-WHEEL MILL 105
THE GRINDING SURFACE OF A MILLSTONE 107
‘HOT GINGERBREAD, SMOKING HOT’ 152
HOGARTH’S PICTURE OF FORD 154
THE BIDDENDEN MAIDS 160
THE
HISTORY OF BREAD
FROM PRE-HISTORIC TO MODERN TIMES.
CHAPTER I.
PRE-HISTORIC BREAD.
Man, as is evidenced by his teeth, was created graminivorous, as well
as carnivorous, and the earliest skull yet found possesses teeth
exactly the same as modern man, the carnivorous teeth not being bigger,
whilst in many cases the whole of the teeth have been worn down, as if
by masticating hard substances, such as parched grain.
In the history of bread, the lake dwellings of Switzerland are most
useful, as from them we can gather the cereals their inhabitants used,
their bread, and the implements with which they crushed the corn. The
men who lived in them are the earliest known civilised inhabitants
of Europe—by which I mean that they cultivated several kinds of
cereals—wove cloth, made mats, baskets, and fishing nets, and, besides,
baked bread.
The cereals known to us, and made use of, are the result of much
cultivation, improved by selection; and Hallett’s pedigree wheat would
be hardly recognised when put by the side of its humble progenitor of
pre-historic times. We now use wheat, barley, oats, Indian corn or
maize, rye, rice, millet, and Guinea corn, or Indian millet, besides
such odds and ends as the sea lyme grass (_Elymus arenarius_), which,
though uncultivated, affords seed which is used in Iceland as a food,
for want of something better.
We have been enabled to trace with certainty the cereals used by
pre-historic man, as they have been found lying in the lake mud, or
buried under a bed of peat several feet thick, when they had to be
collected out of a soft, dark-coloured mud, which formed the ancient
lake-bottom, and is now called the relic bed. Dr. Oswald Heer, in his
_Treatise on the Plants of the Lake Dwellings_, says: ‘Stones and
pottery, domestic implements and charcoal ashes, grains of corn and
bones, lie together in a confused mass. And yet they are by no means
spread regularly over the bottom, but are frequently found in patches.
The places where bones are plentiful, where the seeds of raspberries
and blackberries, and the stones of sloes and cherries are found in
heaps, probably indicate where there were holes in the wooden platform,
through which the refuse was thrown into the lake; whilst those places
where burnt fruits, bread, and plaited and woven cloth are found,
indicate the position of store rooms in the very places where they were
burnt, and thus the contents fell into the water. The burnt fruits
and seeds, therefore, unquestionably belong to the age of the lake
dwellings; and a portion of them are in very good preservation, for
the process of burning has not essentially changed their form. Many
of the remains of plants, however, have been preserved in an unburnt
state.’
He gives the following list of cereals that have been found, and
it is a somewhat extensive one: ‘(1) Small lake-dwelling barley
(_Hordeum hexastichum sanctum_), (2) Compact six-rowed barley (_Hordeum
hexastichum densum_), (3) Two-rowed barley (_Hordeum distichum_),
(4) Small lake-dwelling wheat (_Triticum vulgare antiquorum_), (5)
Beardless compact wheat (_Triticum vulgare compactum muticum_), (6)
Egyptian wheat (_Triticum turgidum_), (7) Spelt (_Triticum spelta_),
(8) Two-grained wheat (_Triticum dicoccum_), (9) One-grained wheat
(_Triticum monococcum_), (10) Rye (_Secale cereale_), (11) Oat (_Avena
sativa_), (12) Millet (_Panicum miliaceum_), and (13) Italian millet
(_Setaria Italicum_).’
Of these Nos. 1 and 4 were the most ancient, most important, and most
generally cultivated, and next to them come Nos. 5, 12, and 13. Nos. 6,
8, and 9 were, probably, like No. 3, only cultivated, as experiments,
in a few places. Nos. 7 and 11 appeared later, not until the Bronze
Age, whilst No. 10 (rye) was entirely unknown amongst the lake
dwellings of Switzerland.
At the lake settlement at Wangen a remarkable quantity of charred corn
was dug up. Mr. Löhle believes that, altogether, and at various times,
he has collected as much as 100 bushels. Sometimes he found the entire
ears, at other times the grain only. Any of my readers can see for
themselves some of this wheat, and also some raspberry seeds, found
at Wangen. In the same case in the Prehistoric Saloon of the British
Museum may be seen specimens of beans, peas, charred straw, acorns,
hazel nuts, barley in the ear, millet in ear, in seed, and made into
cakes, one showing the pattern of the bottom of a basket, and another
the impress of a rush mat. The cakes or bread of millet are very solid,
and are made of meal coarsely crushed.
We know how this was crushed, for we have found their corn-crushers and
mealing-stones. Of these the rude corn-crushers are undoubtedly the
earliest. These stones, with their rounded ends, for a time somewhat
puzzled the archæologist as to their use; but that was at once apparent
when they were taken in conjunction with the hollowed stones. They were
corn-crushers, which were used for pounding the parched corn or raw
grain to make a thick gruel or porridge.
Later on they improved upon them by using mealing-stones, which
ground out the meal by rubbing one stone on another, accompanied with
pressure. The stones are in the British Museum. Such mealing-stones
were used by the Egyptians and Assyrians, as we shall see, and are
employed to this day in Central Africa. ‘The mill consists of a block
of granite, syenite, or even mica schist, 15in. or 18in. square and
five or six thick, with a piece of quartz or other hard rock about
the size of a half-brick, one side of which has a convex surface,
and fits into a concave hollow in the larger, and stationary, stone.
The workwoman, kneeling, grasps this upper millstone with both
hands, and works it backwards and forwards in the hollow of the lower
millstone, in the same way that a baker works his dough, when pressing
it and pushing from him. The weight of the person is brought to bear
on the movable stone, and while it is pressed and pushed forwards and
backwards one hand supplies, every now and then, a little grain, to be
thus at first bruised, and then ground on the lower stone, which is
placed on the slope, so that the meal, when ground, falls on to a skin
or mat spread for the purpose. This is, perhaps, the most primitive
form of mill, and anterior to that in Oriental countries, where two
women grind at one mill, and may have been that used by Sarah of old
when she entertained the angels.’[1]
[Illustration: PRE-HISTORIC MILLS AND CORN-CRUSHERS.]
To these mealing-stones succeeded the quern. This was a basin, or
hollowed stone, with another—oviform—for grinding. The quern has
survived to this day. In London, at the west end of Cheapside, by
Paternoster Row, was a church, destroyed by the Great Fire of 1666,
and never rebuilt, called St. Michael le Quern. It was close by Panyer
Alley, so called from the baker’s basket, and a stone is still in the
alley on which is sculptured a naked boy sitting on a panyer. Querns
have been found in the remains of the lake dwellings in Switzerland,
and in the Crannoges, or lake dwellings of Scotland and Ireland.
They are still in use in out-of-the-way places in Norway, in remote
districts in Ireland, and some parts of the western islands of
Scotland. In the latter country, as early as 1284, an effort was made
by the Legislature to supersede the quern by the water-mill, the use of
the former being prohibited, except in case of storm, or where there
was a lack of mills of the new species. Whoever used the quern was to
’gif the threttein measure as multer[2];’ and the transgressor was to
‘time[3] his hand mylnes perpetuallie.’ Querns were not always made of
stone, for one made of oak was found in 1831, whilst removing Blair
Drummond Moss. It is 19 in. in height by 14 in. in diameter, and the
centre is hollowed about a foot, so as to form a mortar.
To sum up this notice of pre-historic bread, I may mention that at
Robenhausen, Meisskomer discovered 8lbs. weight of bread, and also at
Wangen has been found baked bread or cake made of crushed corn exactly
similar. Of course, it has been burnt, or charred, and thus these
interesting specimens have been preserved to the present day. The form
of these cakes is somewhat round, and about an inch to an inch and a
half thick; one small specimen, nearly perfect, is about four or five
inches in diameter. The dough did not consist of meal, but of grains
of corn more or less crushed. In some specimens the halves of grains
of barley are plainly discernible. The under side of these cakes is
sometimes flat, sometimes concave, and there appears no doubt that the
mass of dough was baked by being laid on hot stones, and covered over
with glowing ashes.