Bread

[panecultus]

Question for my fellow chronic pain/disabled peeps!

Can any of you recommend an alternative to a mortar and pestle that doesn't require all that hand action?

[fawnpalmer]

quarterly reminder that if i reblog something ai-generated it is 110% and always an accident and for the love of god please tell me so i can delete it from my blog

[memecucker]

Invention of bread is weird bc it’s like some Neolithic ppl were like “hey you know that tall grass thing that’s sorta edible but not really how about we take it and grind it into a very very fine powder which is extra backbreaking right now bc the wheel won’t be invented for awhile and then we mix it with water and heat it up and you know what let’s also toss some mold in there just to see what happens”

[quoms]

there are a number of distinct steps though, each of which can be observed in isolation. “grind tough seeds to make them edible” is practiced with other foods besides grains (like acorns). the natural next step after that is to add water, which gives you porridge: a common ancient roman meal was puls, very similar to modern cream of wheat. once you have that you also have a simple dough, and baking it to preserve it is a logical experiment (as is baking some you forgot about and left out for a few days, just so you don’t waste it... voila, leavened bread)

there could have been, and probably was (though i’m not an archaeologist) a substantial time between each of these innovations. it’s not too hard to imagine people being chill with “grind seeds for soup, select plants for bigger seeds” for a good while

[quasi-normalcy]

Do you ever wonder how many amazing things are fated to go forever uninvented because each step necessary to invent them is a completely unintuitive thing to do?

[noctumsolis]

Okay, that's not how bread was invented. I wrote a potted history, I could try to dig that out if anyone is interested?

[quasi-normalcy]

Please do

[panecultus]

I'm putting this on my bread blog, because of course I am. Also tagging @appendingfic who I think expressed interest.

Tens of thousands of years ago people foraged and hunted for their food and ate whatever they could. Among their forage were wild cereals, which included the ancestors of modern cultivated wheat, barley and others.

People like sweet things. Grains are starchy, but if sprouted they start converting those starches to sugars, so people would've left grains in water to sprout. These sprouts are also easier to digest, thus more nutritious, which bestowed an invisible advantage on those sprouting their grains.

If grains are left in water too long, however, they begin to ferment. Alcohol is produced. People like alcohol.

In ancient Mesopotamia the fermented grains were experimented with, resulting in an early form of beer. The process of making that beer was quite complicated and involved a combination of sprouted and mashed grains.

People wanted beer all year round, but early beers did not have long shelf lives and the grain could only be harvested at certain times. So the ancient Mesopotamians invented a way of storing the ingredients for beer.

It was made of the grain mash, honey, dates and spices that were fermented to make beer. For storage, prior to fermentation, the mixture was baked dry, cut into smaller pieces and baked again to remove all water. This produced bapir, a product very much like biscotti, which could be stored for later rehydration and fermentation. Sometimes it was eaten instead.

I've made bapir, and I've eaten it. It is brittle but delicious. It's also a form of unleavened bread.

Bread was invented as a way to store the ingredients for beer, which was most likely a development from a chance discovery. Leavened bread (that is, with bubbles) may well have been discovered when a mixture like that for bapir was accidentally allowed to ferment before baking. Yeast is responsible for both alcohol production and leavening.

There's a lot more to it, in terms of the cultivation of grains and the development of milling, than I've written here. It's been a process of millennia to go from chewing sprouts to eating soft white bread like that pictured. But every step along the way was small and simple.

[quasi-normalcy]

I never would have guessed that beer pre-existed bread. I've always just assumed that beer was an accidental discovery by breadmakers.

[jenniferrpovey]

Nope, beer came first. Mead is also very old.

[headspace-hotel]

Thanks, ancient humans!

[thirtyknives]

Australian First Nations people developed their own bread making culture independent of the beer-base route. As far as I'm aware, pre colonial Australia had little to nothing by way of fermented drinks at all, so the likelihood of beer being part of the evolution of native breads is unlikely. Their breads, made from native grasses, are both leavened and unleavened. There's also different bread making practices using different grains, dependent on location - Australia is big and Indigenous culture over here is no more a monolith than it is anywhere else. Kamilaroi bread is different to Yuin bread, for example.

The colonization of Australia actively suppressed Indigenous knowledge, and creating an image of the idle wandering tribes was required to justify taking Aboriginal lands. This means a lot of the archeology of how First Nations people developed their breads has not just been lost but deliberately suppressed. The idea that they were settled enough to have ovens, let alone a bread-making tradition, is only now really being examined. I wouldn't be surprised if the grains-porridge-bread route was true for Aussie breads, though.

[sunspotpony]

People also are smart enough to observe nature and recognize the way the harsh heat of the summer sun dries things out quickly. They also are smart enough to see that dry things last longer. And that ground plants are easier to eat than whole, and also take up less space for the same amount of food. But the it’s loose and gets everywhere, so making them solid like clay with a little water or fruit juice would be reasonable.

I imagine some early forms of bread probably came from somebody putting some rudimentary pancake batter on a hot rock in the summer to let it dry, and the finding out it fucking slaps.

And if one thing works, the I imagine many things work similarly and probably made variations. People are astoundingly creative and observant especially when they don’t have a bunch of preconceived notions, when they’re bored, and when trying new things can potentially save lives.

@panecultus — in the tradition of bread making you researched, do you know if the practice pre or post dates the use of fire?

@thirtyknives — out of curiosity, do you know/are you willing to share offhand if Yuin bread or Kamilaroi bread predates fire usage?

If it’s in your sources already, I probably missed it. Reading is hard for me and my brain is a sieve. A mind like a steel trap that’s already been sprung. Apologies if redundant inquiries, and thank you.

[panecultus]

Oh it massively post-dates the use of fire. Humans have been using fire for perhaps as much as two million years (that is, since 2MYA (See link) whereas this bread tradition dates to only around ten thousand years ago (10kYA.)

Since the addition from @thirtyknives I've learnt that there are grindstones in Australia dated to sixty thousand years ago (60kYA) around the time humans first arrived there. Which is fantastic but also decidedly post-fire.

So we had both fire and grinding long before actual bread. This naturally leads to various breadmaking traditions around the world developing separately by building on those older technologies.

[panecultus]

My friend sent me a link to a post on your blog, I kept scrolling, and then it was 3am and I was trying a new overnight bread recipe. Good work with the bread propaganda.

Oh this is wonderful!

[arinrowan]

This is the recipe if anyone's curious, my roommate keeps eating it and then i have to make more and the vicious cycle continues

Simple Overnight Bread That Makes the BEST Sandwiches - Just Mix and Wait!

This overnight sandwich bread uses simple ingredients, needs just 20 minutes of prep, and has the BEST texture and flavor.

The 8-12 hours of fermentation REALLY works wonders for a bread that you aren't doing a proper starter for. I don't add the sugar and add less oil (I don't like sweet breads unless they're meant to be sweet, i'll usually add a small amount of honey if I need to proof yeast. The oil thing is mostly me being ornery and continuing my rapeseed oil grudge).

[panecultus]

My friend sent me a link to a post on your blog, I kept scrolling, and then it was 3am and I was trying a new overnight bread recipe. Good work with the bread propaganda.

Oh this is wonderful!

[derinthescarletpescatarian]

Baking is ridiculous. Stir these powders into a goo and them warm them up until they turn into some kind of edible sponge. Who came up with this.

[derinthescarletpescatarian]

Do you guys think maybe you gave too many notes to this one

[time-being-deactivated20250813]

It was a real power move to name one ingredient "baking powder", since there were already so many powders used in baking.

[books-bread-and-brigandage]

Freind of mine (absolutely no baking experiance at all, no, even less than that, less, still less) wanted to bake a cake for her GF. And knowing I am the bread guy, she turned to me for advice at varous points. But again _no_ baking knowledge at all. which lead to the question that still haunts me. "Is 'baking powder the same as flour'. I dont care what direction you are wrong in, both possibilites are horrifying.

[memecucker]

Invention of bread is weird bc it’s like some Neolithic ppl were like “hey you know that tall grass thing that’s sorta edible but not really how about we take it and grind it into a very very fine powder which is extra backbreaking right now bc the wheel won’t be invented for awhile and then we mix it with water and heat it up and you know what let’s also toss some mold in there just to see what happens”

[quoms]

there are a number of distinct steps though, each of which can be observed in isolation. “grind tough seeds to make them edible” is practiced with other foods besides grains (like acorns). the natural next step after that is to add water, which gives you porridge: a common ancient roman meal was puls, very similar to modern cream of wheat. once you have that you also have a simple dough, and baking it to preserve it is a logical experiment (as is baking some you forgot about and left out for a few days, just so you don’t waste it... voila, leavened bread)

there could have been, and probably was (though i’m not an archaeologist) a substantial time between each of these innovations. it’s not too hard to imagine people being chill with “grind seeds for soup, select plants for bigger seeds” for a good while

[quasi-normalcy]

Do you ever wonder how many amazing things are fated to go forever uninvented because each step necessary to invent them is a completely unintuitive thing to do?

[noctumsolis]

Okay, that's not how bread was invented. I wrote a potted history, I could try to dig that out if anyone is interested?

[quasi-normalcy]

Please do

[panecultus]

I'm putting this on my bread blog, because of course I am. Also tagging @appendingfic who I think expressed interest.

Tens of thousands of years ago people foraged and hunted for their food and ate whatever they could. Among their forage were wild cereals, which included the ancestors of modern cultivated wheat, barley and others.

People like sweet things. Grains are starchy, but if sprouted they start converting those starches to sugars, so people would've left grains in water to sprout. These sprouts are also easier to digest, thus more nutritious, which bestowed an invisible advantage on those sprouting their grains.

If grains are left in water too long, however, they begin to ferment. Alcohol is produced. People like alcohol.

In ancient Mesopotamia the fermented grains were experimented with, resulting in an early form of beer. The process of making that beer was quite complicated and involved a combination of sprouted and mashed grains.

People wanted beer all year round, but early beers did not have long shelf lives and the grain could only be harvested at certain times. So the ancient Mesopotamians invented a way of storing the ingredients for beer.

It was made of the grain mash, honey, dates and spices that were fermented to make beer. For storage, prior to fermentation, the mixture was baked dry, cut into smaller pieces and baked again to remove all water. This produced bapir, a product very much like biscotti, which could be stored for later rehydration and fermentation. Sometimes it was eaten instead.

I've made bapir, and I've eaten it. It is brittle but delicious. It's also a form of unleavened bread.

Bread was invented as a way to store the ingredients for beer, which was most likely a development from a chance discovery. Leavened bread (that is, with bubbles) may well have been discovered when a mixture like that for bapir was accidentally allowed to ferment before baking. Yeast is responsible for both alcohol production and leavening.

There's a lot more to it, in terms of the cultivation of grains and the development of milling, than I've written here. It's been a process of millennia to go from chewing sprouts to eating soft white bread like that pictured. But every step along the way was small and simple.

[quasi-normalcy]

I never would have guessed that beer pre-existed bread. I've always just assumed that beer was an accidental discovery by breadmakers.

[jenniferrpovey]

Nope, beer came first. Mead is also very old.

[headspace-hotel]

Thanks, ancient humans!

[thirtyknives]

Australian First Nations people developed their own bread making culture independent of the beer-base route. As far as I'm aware, pre colonial Australia had little to nothing by way of fermented drinks at all, so the likelihood of beer being part of the evolution of native breads is unlikely. Their breads, made from native grasses, are both leavened and unleavened. There's also different bread making practices using different grains, dependent on location - Australia is big and Indigenous culture over here is no more a monolith than it is anywhere else. Kamilaroi bread is different to Yuin bread, for example.

The colonization of Australia actively suppressed Indigenous knowledge, and creating an image of the idle wandering tribes was required to justify taking Aboriginal lands. This means a lot of the archeology of how First Nations people developed their breads has not just been lost but deliberately suppressed. The idea that they were settled enough to have ovens, let alone a bread-making tradition, is only now really being examined. I wouldn't be surprised if the grains-porridge-bread route was true for Aussie breads, though.

[deathcomes4u]

We also have to take into consideration how much fuck-around-and-find-out experimentation first-nations peoples did in order to make some foods edible at all. There would have been a lot of trial and error with Moreton Bay 'Blackbean' Chestnuts for example, where they had to figure out a way to soak all the toxins out of them to make them safe to eat. It would be easy to imagine them harvesting a bumper crop of kangaroo grass seeds or some other grain and going 'lets mess with this and see what we get'. Plus, they performed controlled burning to manage bushland, there's a high chance they ate roasted food straight from the ash of a burn-off and went 'oh we could be onto something with this one'.

[quasi-normalcy]

I bought a really good new breadknife today and now I feel like I have superpowers. Bread-cutting superpowers. I'm going to cut the shit out of some bread. I'm going to get some crusty rolls, just because I can cut them.

[shabbytigers]

[beemovieerotica]

[bisexualbaker]

Tips for baking with arthritis and other hand-related chronic pain

With some changes to techniques, a careful selection of kitchen tools, and tips from fellow bakers, the joy of baking can live on.

I luckily haven't had to deal with much chronic pain or hand pain yet, especially with regards to baking (crochet is another story). That said, these look like some pretty solid tips! There's also some in the comments section.

[bisexualbaker]

As this link nears five hundred notes, I'm just... very quietly touched at how many people are sharing it. Whether they need it themselves (or think they will someday), or know someone else who might need it, the fact that all of them are sharing the sentiment of "I want the people who love doing this thing to be able to keep doing the thing that they love" is... yeah. It makes me happy.

[lastoneout]

What people think baking bread is like: You’re wearing a cute apron in a kitchen straight out of a Ghibli film. It’s warm and sunny and you’re drinking tea while the dough proofs. There’s freshly picked wildflowers, herbs, and a bundle of homemade cheese on the table. Everything is beautiful and nothing hurts.

What baking bread is actually like:

[theshitpostcalligrapher]

my showstopper loaf of bread takes around two days start to finish and I need to check my house’s ambient temperature, humidity, and fridge temps to make 100% sure I’m good to go

everything has a vague sheen of flour or dough droplets on it (slap and fold technique)

i WILL be finding flour in my bra later

such is bread

[memecucker]

Invention of bread is weird bc it’s like some Neolithic ppl were like “hey you know that tall grass thing that’s sorta edible but not really how about we take it and grind it into a very very fine powder which is extra backbreaking right now bc the wheel won’t be invented for awhile and then we mix it with water and heat it up and you know what let’s also toss some mold in there just to see what happens”

[quoms]

there are a number of distinct steps though, each of which can be observed in isolation. “grind tough seeds to make them edible” is practiced with other foods besides grains (like acorns). the natural next step after that is to add water, which gives you porridge: a common ancient roman meal was puls, very similar to modern cream of wheat. once you have that you also have a simple dough, and baking it to preserve it is a logical experiment (as is baking some you forgot about and left out for a few days, just so you don’t waste it... voila, leavened bread)

there could have been, and probably was (though i’m not an archaeologist) a substantial time between each of these innovations. it’s not too hard to imagine people being chill with “grind seeds for soup, select plants for bigger seeds” for a good while

[quasi-normalcy]

Do you ever wonder how many amazing things are fated to go forever uninvented because each step necessary to invent them is a completely unintuitive thing to do?

[noctumsolis]

Okay, that's not how bread was invented. I wrote a potted history, I could try to dig that out if anyone is interested?

[quasi-normalcy]

Please do

[panecultus]

I'm putting this on my bread blog, because of course I am. Also tagging @appendingfic who I think expressed interest.

Tens of thousands of years ago people foraged and hunted for their food and ate whatever they could. Among their forage were wild cereals, which included the ancestors of modern cultivated wheat, barley and others.

People like sweet things. Grains are starchy, but if sprouted they start converting those starches to sugars, so people would've left grains in water to sprout. These sprouts are also easier to digest, thus more nutritious, which bestowed an invisible advantage on those sprouting their grains.

If grains are left in water too long, however, they begin to ferment. Alcohol is produced. People like alcohol.

In ancient Mesopotamia the fermented grains were experimented with, resulting in an early form of beer. The process of making that beer was quite complicated and involved a combination of sprouted and mashed grains.

People wanted beer all year round, but early beers did not have long shelf lives and the grain could only be harvested at certain times. So the ancient Mesopotamians invented a way of storing the ingredients for beer.

It was made of the grain mash, honey, dates and spices that were fermented to make beer. For storage, prior to fermentation, the mixture was baked dry, cut into smaller pieces and baked again to remove all water. This produced bapir, a product very much like biscotti, which could be stored for later rehydration and fermentation. Sometimes it was eaten instead.

I've made bapir, and I've eaten it. It is brittle but delicious. It's also a form of unleavened bread.

Bread was invented as a way to store the ingredients for beer, which was most likely a development from a chance discovery. Leavened bread (that is, with bubbles) may well have been discovered when a mixture like that for bapir was accidentally allowed to ferment before baking. Yeast is responsible for both alcohol production and leavening.

There's a lot more to it, in terms of the cultivation of grains and the development of milling, than I've written here. It's been a process of millennia to go from chewing sprouts to eating soft white bread like that pictured. But every step along the way was small and simple.

[quasi-normalcy]

I never would have guessed that beer pre-existed bread. I've always just assumed that beer was an accidental discovery by breadmakers.

[jenniferrpovey]

Nope, beer came first. Mead is also very old.

[headspace-hotel]

Thanks, ancient humans!

[thirtyknives]

Australian First Nations people developed their own bread making culture independent of the beer-base route. As far as I'm aware, pre colonial Australia had little to nothing by way of fermented drinks at all, so the likelihood of beer being part of the evolution of native breads is unlikely. Their breads, made from native grasses, are both leavened and unleavened. There's also different bread making practices using different grains, dependent on location - Australia is big and Indigenous culture over here is no more a monolith than it is anywhere else. Kamilaroi bread is different to Yuin bread, for example.

The colonization of Australia actively suppressed Indigenous knowledge, and creating an image of the idle wandering tribes was required to justify taking Aboriginal lands. This means a lot of the archeology of how First Nations people developed their breads has not just been lost but deliberately suppressed. The idea that they were settled enough to have ovens, let alone a bread-making tradition, is only now really being examined. I wouldn't be surprised if the grains-porridge-bread route was true for Aussie breads, though.

[panecultus]

That is one of the most exciting things I've ever learnt!

[amygdalae]

My dad is such a dungeon meshihead now it's epic

[amygdalae]

He sent me a picture of the bread he made and said "I call it Steve's Underwhelming Loaf" and then followed that up by sending me this

[apolladay]

Which is your favourite bread?

White / Whole wheat / Rye / Pumpernickel / Sourdough / Flatbread (Pita, naan, etc.) / French bread (includes but not limited to baguettes ) / Italian bread (Ciabatta, Focaccia, etc.) / Soda bread / Brown bread / Other / Results

(Note: this poll is about basic bread types, not stuff like garlic bread or cheesy bread or banana nut bread. The 'other' option is for similar basic breads that I'm not familiar with.)

Which is your favourite bread?

White

Whole wheat

Rye

Pumpernickel

Sourdough

Flatbread (Pita, naan, etc.)

French bread (includes but not limited to baguettes )

Italian bread (Ciabatta, Focaccia, etc.)

Soda bread

Brown bread

Other

Results

Voting ended onMay 10, 2024

(Note: this poll is about basic bread types, not stuff like garlic bread or cheesy bread or banana nut bread. The 'other' option is for similar basic breads that I'm not familiar with.)

[fuckyeahbiguys]

[fuckyeahbiguys]

We’ve waited a year to reblog this. Happy Bread Anniversary!

Because it’s important to celebrate the little victories in life. 

[dduane]

IT’S BREAD DAY!

…Yay!

[dduane]

IT’S BREAD DAY AGAIN! (cc: @petermorwood )

[indigesti0n]

I FOUND THIS TWITTER AND THEY LITERALLY ONLY POST ABOUT BREAD

LIKE THEY SEARCH “BREAD” ON TWITTER AND JUST REPLY TO EVERYTHING

THEY ALSO TWEET BAND MEMBERS ABOUT BREAD

AND THEY SHUT DOWN SEXIST PIGS. USING BREAD. 

JUST. OMG

[indigesti0n]

?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!!?!?

[pendejx-deactivated20200323]

You know everyone can see you made the Twitter account because theres a delete button right?

[panecultus]

Okay but goals though.