William Rubel on Bread
Primitive tools do not need to imply primitive results. exquisitely carved objects and elegant painting by societies tens of thousands of years before the invention of grain agriculture attest to the essentially unlimited possibilities for bread making in the context of the earliest gatherers of grains.
This from William Rubel’s new little book, Bread: A Global History. Hear, hear. From an aficionado of the simple grindstone, I can attest that nothing surpasses tortillas from that simple tool. I wouldn’t want to prepare the dough that way except as an experiment, nor would I wish it on anyone else. That doesn’t mean I can’t recognize the quality. And the same quality, I suspect, could be achieved grinding wheat and other bread grains.
Bread has yet to have a general historian, excellent as certain histories of French or British baking are. William knows his stuff and this short book is a trial run for a much bigger book that I am eagerly awaiting. Both books deal with raised breads, not flat breads, and global is a bit of an overstatement on the publisher’s part. Don’t let that deter you. This is well worth reading.
It covers the early history of bread to the end of the Roman Empire, bread as a marker of status, bread and fashion, a tour of the contemporary breads of six countries, and a limited but eye-opening selection of historical bread recipes. One of these is the bread fed to privileged horses in seventeenth-century England. As he says
Even in a society more used than ours to the idea of a fixed social hierarchy, it must have felt terrible to be able to see by the bread on one’s table that one’s food wasn’t worth the trouble the master put into that of his horse.
You might also look up William’s earlier book, The Magic of Fire. It’s a lyrical and practical introduction to the variety and sophistication of hearth cookery.
Edit. Here’s a favorable review of William’s book by Steven Kaplan of Cornell, one of the the experts on both contemporary bread and on the history of bread. Thanks to Dan Strehl for the link.
Roman soldiers usually had a small grindstone with them, with which they made their own flour to bake bread. The resulting product of course was a rather rough affair, but giving out wheat and other grains instead of bread itself solved a logistic nightmare: how to feed thousands of men on the march without overly compromising mobility or health.
Historian Marcus Junkelmann sees this as so fundamental to Rome’s success, that he devoted an entire book to it: Panis militaris – The Diet of the Roman Soldier or the Base of Might (my translation of the subtitle).
Hi, thanks so much for the reference to Marcus Junkelmann whose work I had missed. I have his book marked to read as soon as I get to a large university library. Couldn’t agree more with him that this was a major breakthrough in military logistics. And when you consider the mass production of grindstones, it was also a major factor in diffusing a new technology. So I can’t wait to look at his book.
In return, here’s another fascinating one in English this time. Jonathan P. Roth. The Logistics of the Roman Army at War (264 BC to AD 235). Leiden: Brill, 1998.
Your recommendation sounded so good that I immediately ordered Rubel’s _Bread_ from amazon, and I’ve now read it. I really appreciate your having introduced me to such a great book!
Glad you enjoyed it too, Mae.