The book on breadThe book on bread
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Fernand Braundel, Capitalismo e civiltà materiale Einaudi editore, 1967
Martino Giorgini, Appunti sulla grande via della vita
Giovanni Quagli, Scienza e tecnologia della panificazione
Annaliese e Gerhard Eckert, Il libro del pane |
Piero Camporesi, Il pane selvaggio Il Mulino, 1980
Antonio Marinoni, Pane: storia, tradizioni, ricette
Charles A. Stear, Handbook of breadmaking tecnology
Confederation Nationale de la Boulangerie et Patisserie |
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Der Mensch ist was er isst.
That is, man is what he eats. His food is really a witness to the culture, the civilization, and the social status he belongs to. Cereals and meat, agriculture and breeding: in the course of ages this has been human food stake. Between the 15th and the 18th century men fed essentially on vegetables. With the only exception of Europe, where meat held the supremacy. This was, however, a privilege which was destined to fade by the early 17th century, as if the principle of the vegetable need had taken its revenge, while population was expanding. Two revolutions in the field of nutrition have marked human destiny: the former around the end of the Palaeolithic age, when the omnivorous race started on the long season of big animal hunting, the latter with the advent of the Neolithic agriculture, i.e of the grown cereals (5th millennium before the Cristian age). Little by little fields got the upper hand over the grounds intended for hunting and breeding, and human palate "became vegetable". In this season, the long season of bread, "polenta", and soup, wheat imposed itself. Wheat was above all synonym of Occident, but not only that. In northern China, even before the 15th century , wheat was grown together with millet and sorghum. Wheat, however, did not play the lead: in China it was a mere food accessory, particularly since the Chinese had not yet got to know a method for kneading bread. A sort of high-quality wheat was grown on the dry plains of the Indus, of the Upper Ganges, and in Iran as well, where wheat was cultivated to produce a kind of simple and cheap bread (unleavened thin captain). Wheat became therefore a travelling cereal: it was present around the Mediterranean and "dwelt" on the Sahara oases as well. But, as we said before, Europe "sowed" wheat all over the world: from Europe indeed wheat left for its numerous conquests. The Russian farms took wheat far away, towards the East, over Irkustsk, in Siberia. And so much so that since 1500 the Russian peasant had reposed his fortune on the copious wheat fields of Ukraine, which was a throrough granary; not forgetting the part played by France, whence through Marseilles, ships unloaded the fine wheat coming from the Blackh Sea. And over the Atlantic, what was this cereal destined to? In Latin America wheat had to compete both with an extremely hot climate and with some rival growings: maize and manioc. But even here, though later than elsewhere, wheat was to succeed. Firstly in Chile, near the San Lorenzo, and then in Mexico, and above all in the English settlements in America; afterwards in the 18th century wheat was to triumph in Argentina and then to pass to Australia.
Bread: historical witness. |
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 25 March 1996 |