INFORMATION SHEET NO.

HISTORY OF BAKING.

INTRODUCTION
Bread is indispensable part of every man’s diet. A source of carbohydrate and protein, it can be paired
with different dishes. Wheat is the source of flour and it is widely used in the food industry. Pasta, noodles,
and all baked products are made of these. It is important however to know how flour became one of the staple
in food preparation.

LEARNING CONTENTS
Baking is a process by which food is subjected to dry heat in an oven.

Grains have been the most important staple food in the human diet since prehistoric times.
At first, man satisfied his hunger by eating raw grain seeds.
Because of the lack of cooking utensils, it is probable that one of the earliest grain preparations was
made by toasting dry grains, pounding them to a meal with rocks, and mixing the meal to a paste with
water.
More than 8,000 years ago the Swiss Lake Dwellers learned how to mix flour and water into dough.
They poured the mixture on heated stones to bake it.
Same means of baking bread prevailed through the civilization of the Babylonians, Chaldeans,
Assyrians and Egyptians.
Later it was discovered that some of this paste, if laid on a hot stone next to a fire, turned into a
flatbread that was a little more appetizing than the plain paste.
In 3,000 B.C., the raised loaf was discovered and this is the accepted version of the first leavened or
raised bread.
A baker in the Royal Egyptian household set aside some dough made of wheat flour and forgot about it.
His dough soured and expanded. The frightened baker kneaded it into newly made dough and baked it
on hot stone.
5,000 years later, in the 17th century, a scientist found out what saved the Egyptian baker’s job. Yeast
cells were seen and identified in bread dough and the process by which dough raises was revealed.
The flat bread baked in the Valley of the Nile was a mixture of water, grain, meal and sugar. When the
dough was aside, wild yeast in the air settled on the dough.
The wild yeast spores and the sugar combines, breaking up or fermenting the sugar. Air bubbles were
formed, causing air-like pockets which puffed up the dough. Then the heat from the baking stones
caused further rising action, and when cooled, the bread retained its shape.

THE FIRST BAKERS

 The Greeks were the master bakers of antiquity, with more than 70 different recipes for bread.
 Sometime between 200 and 300 B.C., public bakeries were established in Greece.
 They were started by freed men who originally slaves were brought to Greece for manual work, or they
were men born of slave labor and eventually given their liberty.
 Once given freedom, they followed the same jobs they performed in bondage.
 As the Roman Empire formed, absorbing Greece, the conquerors also absorbed the baking industry.
 The bakers of Rome became so important that legislators began regulating their trade about 200 B.C
when a relief law was passed demanding a free donation of grain to people unable to earn a livelihood.

WHEAT ARRIVED IN THE PHILIPPINES

o Unlike rice, wheat is not indigenous to this country. Its cultivation was only introduced by the Spanish
missionaries in the early 17th century intended mainly for making Eucharistic wafers.
o Early accounts indicated that wheat was planted in the provinces of Batangas, Laguna, Cavite and
Cagayan Valley.
o Wheat has been consumed since the days of the Spanish galleon trade in Mexico.

ISABELA STATE UNIVERSITY- ANGADANAN ADVANCE BAKING FIRST SEMESTER-2017-2018

 o There is even some evidence that wheat consumption predates that period going back to the days of
Chinese traders a thousand years ago.
o The American occupation in the Philippines has the country importing flour from the United States.
o By 1958, Republic Flour Mills was in operation, and instead of buying flour from the U.S.A., people
started to buy heat instead.

THE ADVENT OF IMPROVED BAKING

 In the early 1960’s, the baking trade in the Philippines was rated about the same level as baking was in
the U.S. in the mid-1800’s.
 In 1962, U.S. Wheat Associates Inc. established an office in the Philippines with intent of developing
the market for U.S. wheat.
 The years 1958-1976 witnessed the construction and operation of eight flour mills scattered all over the
country.
 Bakeries have mushroomed in almost every corner in the country.
 Presently, the Filipinos buy wheat from U.S.A. and from Canada to supply the needs of several flour
mills now operating in the country.
 Until modern technology can come up with a way of producing wheat in the Philippines, the Filipinos
will always depend on the importation of wheat to meet the growing demands for baked products that
only wheat can fill.

Baking Bread in Egypt

Ancient Oven

ISABELA STATE UNIVERSITY- ANGADANAN ADVANCE BAKING FIRST SEMESTER-2017-2018