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Toast begins with bread and bread begins with our. The rst archaeological proof of our dates back 30,000 years ago. It is highly probable that people were making atbreads around that time, as well.
Bread was an essential food in early civiliza-
tions and in ancient Greece it was sometimes
used as an offering to the gods. Some of the rst crops to be culti- vated were wheat and barley and even though these crops were not as nutritious as other food sources, bread – the result of grains – fed a larger number of people. In fact, the ability to make bread was one aspect in ancient, tribal people’s ability to settle in one place ceasing their nomadic way of life.
The bread we eat today rst originated in ancient Egypt. The Egyp- tians discovered that dough left sitting out for a time would rise and when baked, the dough changed texture and retained the risen shape.
The Egyptians also invented the closed oven which was used for the baking of leavened breads by 3000 B.C. The workers who built the great pyramids were paid partially with bread.
Leavened bread - at this point in his- tory – was lighter and thought to be bet- ter than at breads. The problem was when the leavened bread was left out in the sun for too long it became dry and dif cult to chew.
This brings us to the origin of toast. It is thought that toast began as a method to preserve bread. Scorching or even browning sliced bread helped it last for longer
periods of time and thus, it could be stored.
The word “toast” means “sliced bread singed by heat” and comes from the Latin torrere, “to burn”.
The practice of toasting bread rst became popular in the Ro- man Empire. It is thought that breads were toasted by placing the slices in front of a re on a hot stone, but in time basic devices were invented to quickly cook the bread in the re. These de- vices were frames that allowed the bread to cook evenly.
As a writer, I was intrigued to discover toast was rst noted in print within a recipe dating from 1430. The recipe was for Oyle
e rst archaeological proof of our dates back 30,000 years ago. It is highly probable that people were making atbreads around that time, as well.
14 Spring 2016
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