Glutenin and gliadin, which form an elastic network only once the flour is wet and worked
Gluten — the reason wheat can make a risen loaf and rice cannot.
General knowledge · Food & drink
Bread
Baked at least 14,000 years; the Chorleywood process from 1961
Food and drink — gluten, leaven and the staple that shaped English vocabulary
A baked dough of ground grain and water, usually raised. Wheat is the dominant grain because two of its proteins, glutenin and gliadin, form gluten when hydrated and worked — an elastic network that traps the carbon dioxide of fermentation and lets the loaf rise. Charred remains from north-eastern Jordan show flat loaves were baked some 14,000 years ago, before agriculture. The modern British loaf owes its speed to the Chorleywood Bread Process, devised in Hertfordshire in 1961, which replaces long fermentation with intense mechanical mixing; in 2022 UNESCO inscribed the artisanal know-how of the French baguette on its intangible heritage list.
How to spot them
- ▸Two wheat proteins that only become a third when wet and worked
- ▸A Hertfordshire research station in 1961 and a loaf made in three hours
- ▸Four ingredients only: flour, water, salt and yeast or leaven
- ▸English words for lord, lady and companion all descend from it
- ▸A medieval assize, and a dozen with one extra
Key facts
Charred flat cakes from Shubayqa 1 in north-eastern Jordan, baked before farming began (12000 BC)
Around 14,000 years old — evidence that baking preceded agriculture rather than following it.
A 1961 process at a Hertfordshire research station replacing long fermentation with violent mixing and ascorbic acid (1961)
The Chorleywood Bread Process, developed by the British Baking Industries Research Association; it allows low-protein home-grown wheat to be used.
UNESCO inscribed the artisanal know-how behind a four-ingredient French stick in 2022 (2022)
Flour, water, salt and leaven or yeast — the baguette, added to the Representative List of Intangible Cultural Heritage.
The Assize of 1266 fixed the price by weight, and bakers added one to the dozen rather than be flogged (1266)
The Assize of Bread and Ale, and the origin story of the baker's dozen.
Old English hlafweard, 'loaf-ward', and hlaefdige, 'loaf-kneader'
Lord and lady. 'Companion' is from Latin com- and panis, one you share a loaf with.
Arnaldo Cavallari devised a slipper-shaped Italian answer to the French stick in 1982 (1982)
Ciabatta, created near Adria in the Veneto and now ubiquitous.
A spongy Ethiopian flat cake of fermented teff, used as plate and as cutlery
Injera.
Key ideas
- Sourdough is a symbiosis: wild yeasts produce the gas, and lactobacilli produce the acids that give the flavour and keep spoilage organisms out. The San Francisco culture even has its own named bacterium, Fructilactobacillus sanfranciscensis.
Quick-fire facts
- •Gluten is formed from the wheat proteins glutenin and gliadin when flour is hydrated and worked
- •Charred remains from Shubayqa 1 in Jordan date flatbread to roughly 14,000 years ago, predating agriculture
- •The Chorleywood Bread Process was developed in 1961 by the British Baking Industries Research Association in Chorleywood, Hertfordshire
- •UNESCO inscribed the artisanal know-how and culture of baguette bread in November 2022; it uses only flour, water, salt and leaven or yeast
- •The Assize of Bread and Ale of 1266 regulated price and weight; the baker's dozen is traditionally explained as insurance against the penalties for short weight
- •'Lord' derives from Old English hlafweard, 'loaf-keeper', and 'lady' from hlaefdige, 'loaf-kneader'; 'companion' from Latin panis
- •Ciabatta was created in 1982 by Arnaldo Cavallari at Adria in the Veneto, as a response to the popularity of the baguette
- •British white flour is required by law to be fortified with calcium, iron, thiamine and niacin, a wartime measure retained since 1940s legislation
- •Injera is Ethiopian and made from teff; pumpernickel is a dense German rye baked very slowly; challah is the Jewish Sabbath loaf, usually plaited
- •The Maillard reaction between sugars and amino acids, not caramelisation alone, produces the brown crust and most of the aroma
Drill it — 9 cards
1 / 9new card
Sources
- UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage — Artisanal know-how and culture of baguette bread
- Harold McGee — On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen
- William Rubel — Bread: A Global History