Invention of bread is weird bc it’s like some Neolithic ppl were like “hey you know that tall grass thing that’s sorta edible but not really how about we take it and grind it into a very very fine powder which is extra backbreaking right now bc the wheel won’t be invented for awhile and then we mix it with water and heat it up and you know what let’s also toss some mold in there just to see what happens”
there are a number of distinct steps though, each of which can be observed in isolation. “grind tough seeds to make them edible” is practiced with other foods besides grains (like acorns). the natural next step after that is to add water, which gives you porridge: a common ancient roman meal was puls, very similar to modern cream of wheat. once you have that you also have a simple dough, and baking it to preserve it is a logical experiment (as is baking some you forgot about and left out for a few days, just so you don’t waste it… voila, leavened bread)
there could have been, and probably was (though i’m not an archaeologist) a substantial time between each of these innovations. it’s not too hard to imagine people being chill with “grind seeds for soup, select plants for bigger seeds” for a good while
Do you ever wonder how many amazing things are fated to go forever uninvented because each step necessary to invent them is a completely unintuitive thing to do?
Okay, that’s not how bread was invented. I wrote a potted history, I could try to dig that out if anyone is interested?
Please do
I’m putting this on my bread blog, because of course I am. Also tagging @appendingfic who I think expressed interest.
Tens of thousands of years ago people foraged and hunted for their food and ate whatever they could. Among their forage were wild cereals, which included the ancestors of modern cultivated wheat, barley and others.
People like sweet things. Grains are starchy, but if sprouted they start converting those starches to sugars, so people would’ve left grains in water to sprout. These sprouts are also easier to digest, thus more nutritious, which bestowed an invisible advantage on those sprouting their grains.
If grains are left in water too long, however, they begin to ferment. Alcohol is produced. People like alcohol.
In ancient Mesopotamia the fermented grains were experimented with, resulting in an early form of beer. The process of making that beer was quite complicated and involved a combination of sprouted and mashed grains.
People wanted beer all year round, but early beers did not have long shelf lives and the grain could only be harvested at certain times. So the ancient Mesopotamians invented a way of storing the ingredients for beer.
It was made of the grain mash, honey, dates and spices that were fermented to make beer. For storage, prior to fermentation, the mixture was baked dry, cut into smaller pieces and baked again to remove all water. This produced bapir, a product very much like biscotti, which could be stored for later rehydration and fermentation. Sometimes it was eaten instead.
I’ve made bapir, and I’ve eaten it. It is brittle but delicious. It’s also a form of unleavened bread.
Bread was invented as a way to store the ingredients for beer, which was most likely a development from a chance discovery. Leavened bread (that is, with bubbles) may well have been discovered when a mixture like that for bapir was accidentally allowed to ferment before baking. Yeast is responsible for both alcohol production and leavening.
There’s a lot more to it, in terms of the cultivation of grains and the development of milling, than I’ve written here. It’s been a process of millennia to go from chewing sprouts to eating soft white bread like that pictured. But every step along the way was small and simple.
tl;dr
Humanity: *Invents beer*
Humanity: Man, I wish I could have this all the time!
Humanity: *invents bread*
Humanity: HOLY FUCK THIS IS AMAZING
Bread dates from at least 14,000 years ago, while the earliest known production of anything like beer is from about 13,000 years ago. So from the archaeological evidence available right now, bread came first.
But that was flatbread. The yeast to make the earliest leavened bread, on the other hand, may have come from beer.
From what I know, and what this thread is kinda showing, is that different cultures developed bread and beer at different times, some invented beer first, others developed bread first.
when the subject of “why do people believe things that are seriously wrong and harmful” comes up it feels like you kinda hear one of two perspectives:
“oh, that’s easy! it’s because they’re fundamentally Bad people who want to hurt others and choose their beliefs to justify that! :) hope this helps”
or
“they just don’t have access to the same information we do. look at this person who was raised in a cult! don’t you feel sorry for her?”
and like, yes, fine, some people were in fact raised in cults, but what i wish people would understand is that the bulk of it is just normal human flaws, like:
they want to believe stuff that makes them feel smart and cool and like they’ve figured everything out (you also do this)
they want to believe stuff that makes them feel like their emotions are justified and grounded in reality, and that the people they want to hurt deserve to be hurt (you also do this)
they form conclusions before they’ve processed all the relevant information, and cling to that first impression even when new info comes to light (you also do this)
they pick up beliefs from the people around them because they want to be liked and fit in, not because the beliefs are good or true (you also do this)
they come up with reasons that the stuff that benefits them (and the people they like and identify with) is actually overwhelmingly best for everyone and obviously the right thing to do (you also do this)
they pay more attention to stuff that supports what they already believe and avoid looking in places that might show them otherwise (you also do this)
they listen to people who talk like ‘one of them’ and ignore others (you also do this)
they come up with reasons to dismiss people with conflicting viewpoints as obviously in bad faith or ignorant or a shill or evil (you also do this)
they fail to take their own beliefs seriously sometimes, and take their beliefs way too seriously other times, in a selective way that lets them do the things they already wanted to do (you also do this)
the very ways they construct the ideas of 'knowledge’ and 'wisdom’ and 'belief’ and 'understanding’ are biased so that what they don’t want to believe comes under lots of scrutiny and what they do want to believe receives less (you also do this)
you, dear reader, are presumably right about everything and were correct to die on every hill you’ve ever died on, but the difference between you and someone who’s wrong about important stuff doesn’t look like “well they’re inherently evil and i’m not”, it probably looks like a combination of:
natural environment (they would have been exposed to different information than you regardless of their choices)
being in the right place at the right time (your particular profile of flaws and virtues happened to be what was needed to lead you to the right conclusions, they had the opposite experience)
random luck (you doubled down on what felt right to believe but wasn’t, but it turned out to be inconsequential, or even right for different reasons, while they doubled down on what turned out to be a horrible mistake distorting their entire worldview)
you do less of the things in the previous list, and over time the difference between you and them adds up
and, look, i also do these things. the nicest and most thoughtful people i’ve ever met do these things. if you meet someone who never does any of these things, i dunno, give them a fucking medal or something.
i know you’re doing your best. we’re all doing our best.
Did you guys know the “Sickos” artist made a Sicko thats a WGA screenwriter on strike (said comic artist is a The Onion satirist comic artist and his name is Stan Kelly)
ALT
And honestly? What a mood. Haha YES indeed.
Major disservice to the community by not posting the full comic
I love the term “loanwords” because it implies that you intend to give them back.
*dumps a box full of words on French’s front porch* You never came back for your shit.
Loanwords, loaned to the British Museum so
Would everyone like to know the best thing??? There are two types of borrowed word - loan words and calques. Loan words are words taken directly from the language i.e. tattoo, sushi, guillotine. Calques are words literally translated from the language before being borrowed i.e. beer garden, scapegoat, killer whale (incorrectly calqued, the original actually means whale killer which is a whole other post).
Did anyone notice the fun thing?
Loan word is a calque (German lehnwort lit. Loan+word) and calque is a loan word (French calque - tracing or imitation). Have a good day!
Sorry I wasn’t listening to you, I was thinking about the Duke of Wellington’s personal 11-foot-tall statue of nude, totally jacked Napoleon.
Twitter thread! (and yes Kate Beaton’s “Nemesis” comic comes up)
Oh my goooodddd, im crying at Napoleon basically hiding it in embarrassment only for it to be put on display in the main room of his enemy
Napoleon: … nice statue imma just *throws it into the basement*
Duke of Wellington breaking into Napoleon’s house: OH BOY LOOK AT WHAT I FOUND–
What I wanna know is why Wellington put that statue there. Like was it some kind of power play to show off how he vanquished Napoleon, or did he just think it was a really nice statue?
Every time someone brings this up, I have to be the one to tell them that the statue was a gift to Wellington from the Prince Regent, and it wasn’t looted. The British government paid around £3000 for a giant naked statue of Napoleon. Wellington had to put it somewhere people would be able to see it, or he’d offend the Prince. Love that for him.
ALT
