An Intro to Bread Making

Starting our month long series of looking into bread making, I thought it would be appropriate to first look, briefly, at the history of bread. Bread, in one form or another, has been one of the principal forms of food for man from earliest times. Bread, both leavened and unleavened, is mentioned in the Bible many times. The ancient Greeks and Romans knew bread as a staple.
In Old Testament times, all the evidence points to the fact that bread-making, preparing the grain, making the bread and baking it, was the women's work, but in the palaces of kings and princes and in large households, the bakers' duties would be specialized. Bread was leavened; that is, an agent in the form of a 'barm' was added to the dough that caused the mixture to rise in the shape of our familiar loaf.
The rushed departure of the Israelites from Egypt (thanks to Pharaoh,) described in the Book of Exodus, prevented their bread being leavened as usual.
I read that, “Through much of history, a person's social station could be discerned by the color of bread they consumed. The darker the bread, the lower the social station. This was because whiter flours were more expensive and harder for millers to adulterate with other products. Today, we have seen a reversal of this trend when darker breads are more expensive and highly prized for their taste as well as their nutritional value.” and had to laugh at the reversal over the centuries.

In doing some research on bread and flour I was surprised at what I found. Most of the information, available on the internet, had much to do with whole wheat breads, white breads and little else. Especially when it came to researching flours.
While Whole Wheat and Unbleached White may be the common flours you see on your supermarket shelf, there is a wide range of flours that are useful (and even healthier!) for baking. Spelt Flour, Kamut Flour, Rye Flour, Bread Flour, Pastry Flour, and even flours such as Almond and Rice Flour, for those who are trying to maintain a gluten free diet.
This month we’ll try different recipes, experiment with some new (to me, and hopefully to you too) flours, look at bread making methods and even have an interview with a seasoned bread maker. I hope you’ll enjoy this look into bread making!