Flat out before the rise of bread

Ever wondered why unleavened breads were the ancient norm before more modern loaves rose to the occasion? 

In his book, All About Bread, Australian researcher David Oakenfull believes the answer lies in the behaviour of ancient wheat . . . It needed to be heated before the grain could be properly separated from its chaff. 

This heating destroyed the gluten needed to leaven a loaf. 

Gluten-forming proteins are located in wheat’s starchy endosperm. 

Yeast – the other thing needed for leavening – produces carbon dioxide under favourable conditions. 

So when gluten and yeast mix, they produce a spongy dough mass consisting of tiny gas bubbles encased in a gluten ‘skin’. 

But if you heat gluten-forming proteins before they’re introduced to the yeast, they become inelastic – and unable to rise, no matter how much yeast you introduce to the mix. 

Oakenfull says that at some point, though, the ancient Egyptians developed a wheat that could be threshed raw, thus opening the way for leavening. But it remained scarce for yonks. 

This new-fangled wheat didn’t become common among the Greeks until about 400BCE – even though the Greeks had been importing Egyptian grains for almost 300 years before that. 

But those ancient Egyptians liked something else likely to have played a vital role in leavening – beer! And it appears they often liked to mix B1 with B2 – brewing and baking – in the same facility. 

Although the air is full of wild yeast spore, Oakenfull believes it’s possible that some yeast spores (necessary for making beer) drifted onto some loaves that had been set aside before being baked. 

The result? Loaves that rose slightly, were somewhat lighter than flat breads and far yummier. 

Perhaps a pissed brewer/baker accidentally used beer instead of water in his dough-making, and the rise would have been explosive. 

As many ancient Egyptian workers were paid in bread and beer, such match making would have been a baking accident waiting to happen!