history
History of Wheat
Most grains must be processed to be edible, but very early 'processing' must have been minimal indeed.
Probably, grains were first eaten raw, but it must have discovered early on that they were easier and more pleasant to consume, and could provide more variety in the diet, when cooked or baked. This required milling to remove indigestible outer hulls and grind the grain, especially where flour was desired. An additional bonus was that grain and flour, if kept dry and out of the reach of pests, could be stored, so either or both would yield a food source for winter or in times of scarcity
The wheat that Egyptians grew in such quantity was made into about 40 different sorts of bread, pastry, cakes and biscuits, but grinding the grain was very hard work. Woman using two stones usually did this primitive milling in the open air so grit and other foreign bodies often found their way into the flour. These impurities caused extensive wear on the teeth, and Egyptians often suffered from both tooth infections and abscesses
The Egyptians’ bread dough was made from wheat flour and water – but without yeasts, so the bread did not rise. It was cooked as flat loaves or in moulds and different flavourings could be added, such as honey, milk, eggs, fruit, butter and herbs.
This saddle quern and rubbing stone, made of basalt and limestone, dates from 9000 years ago. Harvested grains were ground with a rubbing stone that was pushed back and forth over grain that was placed on the surface of the quern, a wider, heavier stone that was set in the ground. Basalt was an ideal stone for making querns because it has a very rough surface and is very hard.
At some point before milling became an industry, it was discovered that less-coarse flour could be obtained by sifting ground grains. Baskets or sieves were lined with woven horsehair or papyrus. When flour was sifted through them, the coarser bran particles were left in the sieve, while the flour that went through the sieve was much finer in texture. Eventually, the Romans used linen to sift their flour; one Antiphanes writes about commercial baking with sifted flour about 2350 years ago. However, the process of sifting, which required more time and materials than regular meal or flour, meant that sifted flour was expensive, and only the wealthy could afford bread made with it. As might be expected, this “refined,” sifted flour, which was of a lighter colour than the darker bran, became a status symbol.
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