Bread have a special taste or texture. At one time, all yeast-leavened breads were sourdoughs. Recently there has been a revival of sourdough bread in artisan bakeries. Traditionally, peasant families throughout Europe baked on a fixed schedule, perhaps once a week. The starter was saved from the previous week's dough. The starter was mixed with the new ingredients, the dough was left to rise, and then a piece of it was saved (to be the starter for next week's bread). The rapid expansion of steam produced during baking leavens the bread, which is as simple as it is unpredictable. Steam-leavening is
History of bread History of bread Bread was central to the formation of early human societies. From the western half of Asia, where wheat was domesticated, cultivation spread north and west, to Europe and North Africa. This in turn led to the formation of towns, as opposed to the nomadic lifestyle, and gave rise to more and more sophisticated forms of societal organization. Similar developments occurred in eastern Asia, centered on rice, and in the Americas with maize. Charred crumbs of a flatbread made by proto-Natufian hunter-gatherers from wild wheat, wild barley and plant roots between 14,600 and 11,600 years ago have been