Whilst in Devon..

By TonyL

Who made the first loaf?

Prompted by my wife's scrummy spelt loaf, I was tempted to ask when was the first bread made.

Scientists have discovered the earliest
known evidence of bread-making, from a
14,000-year-old dig site.
The bake wouId have loooked like a
flatbread and tasted a bit like today's
multi-grain varieties, they say.
Our ancestors may have used the bread
as a wrap for roasted meat. Thus, as welI
as being the oldest bread, it may also have
been the oldest sandwich.
The find, from the Black Desert in Jordan,
pushes back the first evidence for bread by
more than 5,000 years.
The stone age bread-makers took flour
made from wild wheat and barley, mixed it
with the pulverised roots of plants, added
water, and then baked it.
'This is the earliest evidence we have for
what we could really call a cuisine, in that
it's a mixed food product," Prof Dorian
Fuller of University College London told
ввс News.
'They've got fIatbreads, and they've got
roasted gazelle and so forth, and that's
something they are then using to make a
meal."

Jordanian bread recipe from
14,000 years ago~
Make flour from wild wheat and wild
barley
Pound tubers (roots) of wild plants
that grow in water (sedges or club- or
bull-rushes) to a dry pulp
Mix together with water to make a batter
or dough
Bake on hot stones around a fire.

So get out there and have a go, send me photos, and I'll award the best effort with a suitable prize.

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