The History of Bread
...y be baked at the same time. Greek sailors and merchants brought the Egyptian flour back to Greece, where bread baking flourished. Rome took over the enterprise after their conquest of Greece, and in 150 BC formed the first Baker's Guilds. From then on the industry began as a separate profession. The Guild or College, called Collegium Pistorum, did not allow the bakers or their children to withdraw from it and take up other trades. The bakers in Rome at this period enjoyed special privileges: they were the only craftsmen who were freemen of the city, all other trades being conducted by slaves. The members of the Guild were forbidden to mix with 'comedians and gladiators' and from attending performances at the amphitheater, so that they might not be contaminated by the vices of the ordinary people. Guilds were not only a way to garner professional respect, but a way to protect the public. The bakers guilds in England were held to strict standards, with harsh punishments for over charging and/or adulterating the bread. The growth of towns and cities throughout the Middle Ages saw a steady increase in trade and bakers began to set up in business. By Tudor times, Britain was enjoying increased prosperity and bread had become a real status symbol. The nobility ate small, fine white loaves called manchets, merchants and tradesmen ate wheaten cobs while the poor had to be satisfied with bran loaves. During the early Middle Ages, much of the bread returned to unleavened loaves, although the Normans reintroduced leavened bread in 1191. By the early 13th century, millers became more important--their job of turning wheat to flour not only allowed for more gradations of flour, but the practice of keeping up to a quarter of the flour produced made millers quite wealthy and thus of no little importance in their towns and villages. England’s "Assizes of Bread", or bread trials are a result of laws adopted in 1202 to regulate the price of bread and limit bakers’ profits. Many bakers are prosecuted for selling loaves that do not conform to the weights required by local laws, which they consider oppressive and unfair. Bakers are ordered to mark each loaf of bread so that if a faulty one turns up "it will be known in whom the fault lies." The bakers’ marks are among the first trademarks. Lack of millers in the early days of colonial America, along with the lack of wheat, posed problems for the housewife. How to make bread without the basic ingredients? The presence of corn quickly led to the invention of cornbread (alternately referred to johnny-cake or journey cake). Even after wheat became common, those in the Southern colonies had trouble making loaves of bread rise due to the high heat and humidity that killed off the necessary wild yeasts. Biscuits became the favored flour-based bread, while cornbread remained popular as well. The advent of roller flour mills in the 1800s led to even more highly processed flour--which led to lighter and whiter loaves, even if not as nutritious as the coarser whole wheat kind. By 1825 a German baker was able to create cakes of yeast, package them for mass sale, and make the baking of bread easier for ever after. Even today, however, there are those who swear that b...