A Short History of Focaccia Bread

Focaccia is a popular style of bread made in Italy and spreading around the world in Italian
communities. The bread is fairly flat, plain from inside, topped with herbs and olive oil and
sometimes with finely sliced olives. A range of focaccia varieties exist and in the 21st century
new varieties have been created due to the versatility of the basic recipe.
Most historians believe that Focaccia originated with either the Etruscans of North Central Italy
prior to the Roman Empire or in Ancient Greece at the beginning of the first millennium BC.
Although flat unleavened bread has been made throughout the Middle East extending to Persia for
this long as well and identifying a specific culture behind the first focaccia loaves is almost
impossible. Focaccia bread is slightly different because the loaf rises slightly so its not traditionally
unleavened bread and the focaccia recipe is mostly unknown in the Middle East, yet it has a history
of being prepared in Turkey, Italy, Greece, Spain and France.

Focaccia was historically unleavened, the recipe rises naturally in the right climate which gives a
further clue to its origins, the further inland one goes the less dense the air becomes and considering
so much of the inland Mediterranean is quite mountainous. We can speculate that it was inland
people who first created the focaccia bread. Contrast to this with Phoenician people who originated
in what is now coastal Lebanon and coastal Syria and then spread throughout the Mediterranean by
1100 BC were not known to eat bread with the same properties as focaccia. In coastal areas a small
amount of yeast is needed to make the bread rise otherwise traditional flat bread would be the result.
Its known that the name Focaccia is derived from the Roman words panis focacius. Panis simply
means bread and shouldnt be confused with the modern English word pan, while used for baking
bread is actually derived from the Latin word patina meaning dish. Focacius is the Latin word for
center or fireplace. Linguists conceive that since the fireplace was in the center of the house that the

word could be used interchangeably. Focaccia in Roman times was cooked in the ashes of fire
rather than on a tray above the fire so the translation seems right.
Romans used to mix up a simple recipe of rough flour, salt, olive oil, water, a very small quantity of
yeast and may have been seasoned with other herbs but in most cases was probably quite plain, this
was then baked in the focacius. In Roman times focaccia was used as dipping bread, usually being
torn apart by hand and dipped into salty soups made quite simply from water, vinegar and possibly
olive oil. Today, this doesnt sound very appetizing but it provided nourishment and was a cheap
and filling meal for people doing long hours of physical labor.
During the Roman ceremony of Saturnalia, a pig was sacrificed to please the Roman gods. In the
later years of the Roman Empire a Lord of Misrule was chosen instead who would be feted upon
while all the time wearing the costume of a pig. The Lord of Misrule was always a young man who
was expected to act the part of a clown. A focaccia bread would be baked that included a fava bean
and the lucky man to find the bean in his piece of bread became lord for the ceremony.
The basic recipe of focaccia spread with the Romans to France and Spain where it became a popular
bread to bake initially in less well off areas. In fact focaccia style breads were used widely to feed
slaves in the Roman Empire and a shame still exists today in some countries. In Spain, pan de
hogaza, the peasants bread which is made in a similar way to Roman panis focacius is also known
as pan rustica, a homemade bread typically made in the countryside among the very poor.
Focaccia style recipes in France such as fouaisse or foisse hat made in maroon are considered a
daily bread by a significant part of the population and in bakeries is still one of the most popular
selling breads. Similarly in the regions of Provence and Languedoc fogassa as it is known, focaccia
breads are still very popular with bakeries and supermarkets all selling more fogassa than the
French baguette which is a typical considered bread for France.

In modern times since the medieval ages, the Catholic Church used focaccia quite widely during
religious festivities, most often during the Eucharist and the unleavened recipe of focaccia is most
commonly used. It was primarily owing to Christs use of unleavened bread during The Last

Supper. The tradition was derived from the ready availability of focaccia bread. The method is
simple and some say pure recipe untainted with foreign ingredients thus representing Christs flesh
which is of course considered entirely pure and free from sin.
Italian immigrants to the United States in the 20th century brought recipes with them for pizza,
bruschetta, grissini and of course focaccia. Arguably focaccia is no longer strictly the preserve of
Italian communities, nowadays it can be found in almost all bakeries and supermarkets. Wide
variety of seasonings are available and focaccia bread makes very tasty sandwich bread frequently
served with fillings of cheese and ham.