Bread, in all its various forms, is the most widely consumed food in the world. Not only is it an important source of carbohydrates, it’s also portable and compact, which helps to explain why it has been an integral part of our diet for thousands of years. In fact, recent scholarship suggests humans started baking bread at least 30,000 years ago.
Prehistoric man had already been making gruel from water and grains, so it was a small jump to starting cooking this mixture into a solid by frying it on stones. A 2010 study by the National Academy of Sciences discovered traces of starch (likely from the roots of cattails and ferns) in prehistoric mortar and pestle-like rocks. The roots would have been peeled and dried before they were ground into flour and mixed with water. Finally, the paste would be cooked on heated rocks.
But how did humanity get from this prehistoric flatbread to a fluffy, grocery store loaf? There were three primary innovations that created “modern” bread.
1. Leavening
Leavening is what makes bread rise into a light and fluffy loaf. Bread without leavening is a known as flatbread, and is the most closely related to mankind’s first breads. Examples include Middle Eastern pita, Indian naan and Central American tortillas.
The most common leavening for bread is yeast. Yeast floats around in the air, looking for a nice place to make a home—like a starchy bowl of flour and water. The first leavened bread was likely the result of some passing yeast making a home in a bowl of gruel. The yeast began eating the sugars present in grain, and excreting CO2, producing bubbles that resulted in lighter, airier bread. Commercial yeast production dates back to the skilled bread makers of Ancient Egypt around 300 B.C.