October 16th is World Bread Day. Did you know that? Now you do! Bread is such a basic staple. But as a product that has existed in every society for as long as humans have known how to shove something into a fire, bread is not so simple to define. It’s made of:
- Flour (what kind of flour? wheat, corn, teff, cassava, rye, potato, barley, buckwheat…)
- water (or milk, or butter, or a different liquid)
- yeast (or maybe not)
- salt (usually)
- stuffings and seasonings (with cheese, seeds, meat, spices, sugar, or nothing at all)
- heat (fry in oil, steam in an enclosed chamber, bake directly in ashes, gently warm in geothermal springs, or fire in a hothotterhottest oven for 30 seconds, or something in between)
Take a spin around the world’s breads and I dare you to try not and drool. How many have you eaten?