Talk:Bread

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[edit] grammatical error

Guys, where the article says "There are a wide variety of breads," it should read "There is a wide variety of breads." variety is a singular subject. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.192.232.38 (talk) 04:04, 10 September 2007 (UTC)


Bread is awesome!!!!!!!!! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.125.77.112 (talk) 00:58, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Comment 1

I deleted the Cheese and Broccolli and French bread recipes as they added nothing to this entry. The French bread recipe was useless as it clearly stated at the end that it wasn't a French bread recipe. As for the cheese and brocolli one there are thousands of recipes for different kinds of bread and they can't all be listed here. Charlie

Why has my whole paragraph about bread in Germany been deleted? Germany is world champion in bread consumption. Is that not worth to be mentioned here? It was my first contribution to wikipedia - what a disappointment that someone deletes it completely without a comment.

I did not delete your paragraph about bread in germany but i would suggest that you make it its own entry with a link to it on the bread page. the information is overly specific given the general nature of the remainder of the article. I.E. there are no Bread in France or Bread in China sections. also the first sentence "Germans are crazy about bread" is a little informal for an encyclopedic article. mhbourne 00:31 PDT, 20 Sept 2005


The French are crazy (strictly, deviens fou) about bread too! Wikipedia is tough on authors - hang in there and keep contributing. Just keep things factual. JohnSankey 19:33, 27 September 2005 (UTC)

I took out the "no yeast" comment from the sourdough link. Although strictly gramatically correct as it was written, it's misleading - sourdough does contain yeasts, natural ones that are all around us even in flour. A person who is sensitive to yeasts may still have problems with sourdough breads. JohnSankey 13:56, 27 September 2005 (UTC)

  • Should a recepe be included in the definition of bread? Probably not.
  • This definition leaves some huge holes. How do you fit cornbread, and unleavened breads like pita, matza, etc. Are all speciality breads like rye, made using wheat flour? Not sure how to change this or I would try myself. --rmhermen - 15:43, 25 Feb 2002
  • Looks like somebody has addressed these points now. -- Nojer2 19:35, 14 Apr 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Bread Recipes

  • Obviously meant for industrial-sized households? :) I know very little about the fine art of bread-making, and defer further changes to those who do. -- -- April
  • Guess that reference has gone now (been fixed), but the section taken from the Household Cyclopedia of 1881, is still noticably old in its writing style, and in the units of measurement used ('quarts of water' etc). I say we delete it, and go with the section below. We need to do something like this, since we currently have two sections titled 'Recipes' -- Nojer2 19:35, 14 Apr 2005 (UTC)
  • I'll tell you what, though, the one in the entry as it stands is not very likely to produce anything worth eating, as it recommends adding the yeast to boiling water. Which will of course kill it instantly. -- dzd, 23 May 2005

[edit] Best thing since sliced bread

  • Is there really anything that great about "sliced bread", and what's the point of the end pieces? Do they serve any real benefit, in terms of the form of the others? -- 199.8.171.180 - 22:20, 12 Oct 2004
  • Hmmmm. An interesting question, and one which science surely has no answer to :-) -- Nojer2 19:35, 14 Apr 2005 (UTC)
  • I actually find that the bread dries out more quickly without the end pieces. 22-May-2005
  • I agree it helps to keep the rest of the loaf fresh. But also it gives you something to eat if you run out of bread before buying more. --JimmyTheWig 4 July 2005 10:43 (UTC)
  • I believe that the ball point pen is the best thing since sliced bread. --JimmyTheWig 4 July 2005 10:43 (UTC)
  • I gave my dog the end piece of the loaf of bread. He thought it was delicious!! 9 august 2005

what does that have to do with bread? The ends of the loaf are the best part. We fight over them at home

  • The ends of a fresh loaf, with a real crust are good. The ends of most mass-produced breads aren't so good. They do keep the rest of the bread from drying out, and they do let you have one more sandwich if you forget to go to the store.--RLent 21:08, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Baguettes

"Many breads (such as the famous baguette) are made from a straight dough, which means that all of the ingredients are combined in one step, and the dough baked after the rising time."

I'm not sure this is correct; a baguette - the ones I know - are made with a starter called a "poolish" . This starter dough in either based on bakery yeast or sourdough and is left to rise in a refrigerator for about 12 hours/overnight. This practise was introduced by Polish bakers in the 1840s and adopted in France in the 1920s for making baguettes. I have this from two (swedish) books by artisan bakers; Jan Hedh and Johan Sörberg. thats right! its a special thing about frnech bread! :)

[edit] Old view of cereals

I've deleted this text

The development of leavened bread is commonly believed to have occurred in Egypt, due to its favorable wheat growing conditions, and required the development of wheat varieties with two properties not available in earlier varieties. The first development occurred by the beginning of Dynastic Egypt and consisted of a grain that could be satisfactorily threshed without being first toasted. Discovery of a wheat variety containing sufficient gluten-forming protein was the second development required for raised bread. Initial development of leavened bread is believed to have occurred during the 17th century BC, but the wheat capable of producing it appears to have been rare for a very long time after it was initially developed. This scarcity is suggested by the fact that such grain did not become common in Ancient Greece until the 4th Century BC despite regular trade having occurred between Egypt and Greece for the previous 300 years.

as it represents a very garbled understanding of the history of bread & wheat. The fact is that emmer wheat, cultivated since the Neolithic, makes excellent risen bread, which was widely consumed in Ancient Egypt. It is true that spelt wheat and bread wheat (neither grown in ancient Egypt) make (arguably) even better risen bread, but we have a very incomplete understanding of which wheat species was preferred where, and for exactly what culinary use. Mark Nesbitt 12:56, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

  • I have restore the section in question. The text you removed contains inline citations (inotes) to the references that were used to generate the text, so the removed text is clearly not original research or unverifiable. The development of yeast leavening is also a major development in the way that bread was produced so eliminating this development for the history section seems somewhat excessive. If you have access to additional sources to help fill in some more detail or see a way to copyedit the text to flow better please feel free to do so. If you still feel the need to remove sections, there are still large tracks of text in the article that have no references and are thus eligable for deletion under the terms of WP:V. --Allen3 talk 13:41, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
But the text is nonsense! But I take your point - it's not enough to delete, one must replace it with something better, which I have done. Mark Nesbitt 15:54, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
  • May I have permission to cite Sylvester Graham's On Bread and Bread Making? Also to cite the value of whole grains to the human diet the medical textbooks by Dr. John Kellogg, Autointoxication and Natural Diet of Man?

[edit] Yeast

When was yeast first used? I don't mean a sourdough, I mean yeast as a seperate ingredient. We can buy jars of yeast, but that wasn't always available. I'm curious when people first started making yeast as opposed to using a sourdough.--RLent 21:10, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

According to [1], it was shortly after Pasteur "discovered" yeast in the 1860s. This is almost but not quite covered in the Yeast (baking) article. —Bunchofgrapes (talk) 21:31, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

Maybe Yeast EXTRACT like marmite--Wwjd333 20:22, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Ethnocentric

This is a very good article, but it strikes me as being somwhat ethnocentric - it gives European and North American bread much more attention than bread from other countries. There is mention of Matzos, and of unleavened bread in the history section, but it doesn't say much about bread in other countries today. There's a whole section on French, Danish & German bread, but having just eaten some Morrocan bread, I'm wondering where the section on Middle Eastern bread is. Surely someone knows a lot more about Middle Eastern bread than I do, not to mention bread in India and Africa. So please add some info about it and we can get rid of the cultural bias! :) ~~Saluton~~

[edit] Asians

"Bread is a popular food in Western and most other societies except for the Asian societies that typically prefer rice". I don't think so. In both India and China, people eat rice in the South and bread in the North. It probably has more to do with the climates in which wheat and rice grow than with the inscrutable tastes of those cunning orientals. Ferdinand Pienaar 14:48, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

Indeed. In Wiki there are already articles on Mantou and Bing(Chinese flat bread), traditional staples in Northern China. In this case Northern China doesn't mean Mongolia etc, but more northeasterly locations such as Beijing. In this view bread has just as much heritage as rice does in China.

[edit] Americas

As below I mention, there is no Caribbean or Americas perspective in this article. It would be useful if someone with knowledge of thus could contribute. J.P.Lon 17:08, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Middle Eastern bread

Saluton, you are right, and that's why I've put the {{globalize}} tag on the section in question. Particulary noticeable to me, bread in the Middle East gets only a historical sentence. I know a bit about the contemporary role of bread, but I'm going to wait until I've got sources. -Fsotrain09 21:02, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Image placement

The top of this article seems to be overwhelmed with right-aligned images. I propose either dispersing the images throughout the article and/or moving some to be left-aligned and/or adding an image gallery.Dav2008 15:32, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

I made a gallery. I think it looks MUCH better. --Woohookitty(meow) 06:30, 25 June 2006 (UTC)
Indeed, but maybe a single representative picture in the top right wouldn't hurt. Han-Kwang 08:31, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Copyright

I removed the french bread section as it was blatantly copied from this website: http://www.freshloaf.co.uk/French-loaf-52 I'll look through the rest of the article to check for mroe violations--Crossmr 02:23, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Stalilonis

I removed the following text from the "Types" section:

Another type of bread popular mainly in Plaistow, NH is stalilonis. It is a thin, wheat bread with beer being the active yeast. It was created in Worcester by Lithuanian immigrants in the late 20th century. Stalilonis is inexpensive and is traditionally consumed with bologna and cream cheese.

As much as I love Plaistow (oh yeah, I've been there), I think it's not quite a substantial enough metropolis for stalilonis being mentioned as a specific type of bread. It doesn't pass the Google test, either, although I have had it-- I mean, it does exist. If anybody wants to write one, stalilonis belongs in its own article. Iamvered 18:37, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Unlisted Bread Types

Does anybody know anything about Laffa/Esh Tanur bread. It is very popular in middle eastern countries, sort of a cross between pita and lavash bread and is frequently used interchangably with pita in restaurants (at least in Israel). It is pocketless, is, thinner than pita and is used as a wrap. Esh Tanur is a hebrew term literally meaning "oven fire" Valley2city 16:42, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Today, I spotted several Caribbean breads, including 'Hard Dough', but there is very little(or nothing) in the way of a Caribbean/South Americas perspective in this article, I personally would not be able to fulfil this, since I have very little knowledge of Americas cusine. J.P.Lon 17:03, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] GA Re-Review and In-line citations

Members of the Wikipedia:WikiProject Good articles are in the process of doing a re-review of current Good Article listings to ensure compliance with the standards of the Good Article Criteria. (Discussion of the changes and re-review can be found here). A significant change to the GA criteria is the mandatory use of some sort of in-line citation (In accordance to WP:CITE) to be used in order for an article to pass the verification and reference criteria. Currently this article does not include in-line citations. It is recommended that the article's editors take a look at the inclusion of in-line citations as well as how the article stacks up against the rest of the Good Article criteria. GA reviewers will give you at least a week's time from the date of this notice to work on the in-line citations before doing a full re-review and deciding if the article still merits being considered a Good Article or would need to be de-listed. If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact us on the Good Article project talk page or you may contact me personally. On behalf of the Good Articles Project, I want to thank you for all the time and effort that you have put into working on this article and improving the overall quality of the Wikipedia project. --- The Bethling(Talk) 23:26, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

I don't think this is a good article. Bread is obviously a messy subject because it means lots of different things to different people in different cultures. I've been meaning to put the 'Denmark and Bread' section on its own page for ages. Quite how the words 'zucchini', 'raisins', 'pumpkin' and 'bananas' made it into the first paragraph of an article about bread I don't know.--Moonlight Mile 11:13, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
Actually I am going to go as far as to delist it as a good article.--Moonlight Mile 11:14, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] That's alot of bread! Untrue?

I removed the following line from the "Bread in Germany" section: 82 million people consume around 1,100,000 tons of bread, 5,024,000,000 rolls and 454,000,000 pretzels per year. This is a world record. These numbers seem a little large to me, and they are definitely unreferenced. Can somebody provide a source for or against it? – ClockworkSoul 07:22, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Pitot

The article states that pitot is Hebrew for pita. I'm no expert, but isn't pitot the Hebrew plural of pita?

That's correct. The English and Hebrew should agree in grammatical number. Alfarero (talk) 23:17, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Honey & Dough development

Could someone write about how adding honey affects the characteristics of the resulting loaf? I'm curious as to how the enzymes and sugars affect the development of the dough. -- JHU_AndyLau 76.186.65.184 22:48, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Popularity of unleavened bread in hot countries

This is a question really... It seems to me that although yeast and therefore the raising of bread is widespread, the preference in hot countries appears to be for unleavened bread, whereas in Europe, and by export of the concept to North America, the preference is for leavened bread. Is this a cultural/anthropological artefact, or is it more to do with the local grains and/or cooking technology, or is it to do with heat increasing the rate at which raised bread goes stale? Bjowitt 13:05, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Good question. Other factors are probably more important. Wheat grows best where there are cold winters. You need wheat to produce gluten, which makes leavened bread worth making because it allows it to become light. Wild yeast performs best at about 78 F (I think that's 22 C). Remember when it's hot outside, it's hotter in the bakery. Though Egyptians did use to make a lot of yeast bread. Mold grows fast at high temperatures. You couldn't save your bread for a full week, as you might have to if you used a community oven. Finally, poverty is probably the main reason for unleavened breads. It's a lot easier to pat a tortilla or chapati out in your hands and slap it on a hot rock than it is to take all your baking to the community oven. Alfarero (talk) 23:53, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Fats & Shortenings

I found the section on fats to be a bit confusing. The second paragraph seems to be saying that fats make bread harder while the 3rd paragraph says they tenderize bread. I read the section a few times and thought that perhaps the key is in the first paragraph where it says that fats strengthen the protein structure (which would make it harder, right?) only up to a point (~3%), but adding more fat beyond that point weakens the protein structure (which would make it softer but also less leavened?). Anyway, I'm still not sure if that is what it is trying to say. Maybe everyone else found it clear but to me it was hard to figure out. 24.7.254.33 19:43, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Junkfood?

The article on junkfood has bread listed as not having much nutrional value, does it? This article really needs a nutrition section. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 67.110.221.182 (talk) 20:18, 23 April 2007 (UTC).

Seriously. Bread is called "the staff of life" for good reason (Genesis 3:19). If you don't take all the germ and bran out of the wheat, and make it with sourdough starter, it's actually really, really good for you. Not to mention delicious. But white bread has a higher GI value (blood sugar impact) than donuts, and the fact that it's bad for you isn't why people don't eat much of it anymore. Alfarero (talk) 23:41, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Alternatives to bread

It should be noted that bread is not known in some cultures (e.g. until recently unknown in Japan), and that alternatives to bread exist. These alternatives include congee, and other food made (directly or indirectly e.g. in the form of dough) from rice or grains. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 81.246.128.140 (talk) 11:49, 8 May 2007 (UTC).

[edit] Dough

Reference to 'dough' as money in the UK should be made as well.

[edit] Switzerland

Why Isn't there a article on Switzerland. I went there for holiday and there was more types of bread than you can imagine. Switzerland claims it has more varieties of bread than any other country - between 200 and 300 kinds. It has also been proven that bread making in Switzerland started around 5000-6000 years ago. http://www.swissworld.org/en/switzerland/swiss_specials/swiss_bread/ 12:45, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

There are more than 600 kinds of bread in Germany - every little village has its own bread... [2] —Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.22.197.61 (talk) 16:00, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

There must be a million types of bread in the world. Mexico alone has dozens of popular roll styles, and hundreds or even thousands of pastry varieties. Alfarero (talk) 23:44, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] What is an even crumb?

Will SOMEBODY tell me what this term means? 64.123.143.145 17:31, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

Crumb is the inside, white part of the bread. It may be irregular, with holes of different sizes (see the picture in the main article), or it may have holes that are usually small and all the same size. An even crumb is usually found in homemade bread, made with comparatively little kneading and a drier dough, and in commercial bread that has had many unnatural things done to it to homogenize the cell structure of the loaf. Alfarero (talk) 23:35, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] I'd like to add a link to my web site on bread

I have a site, www.barryharmon.com, that has discussions, recipes and photos of making several different breads. I'd like to add an external link to my site to the Bread topic. Can someone make this happen? Thanks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Barryharmon (talk • contribs) 16:56, August 28, 2007 (UTC)

I added Barry's site and another one. It's very informative and not commercial in essence. Plus, my family just loves the things I make from the recipes on that site. Great job, Barry! 89.139.206.215 (talk) 21:02, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Terminology

"Many breads are made from a straight dough, which means that all of the ingredients are combined in one step, and the dough baked after the rising time. Alternatively, doughs can be made with the starter method, when some of the flour, water, and the leavening are combined a day or so ahead of baking, and allowed to ferment overnight...

I don't think straight dough and starter method are the proper technical terms. I believe the two methods are called the direct and the indirect method. RandomTask 13:59, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

The professional bakers I know and books I've read most commonly use straight dough and preferment, which is essentially a more technical name for a starter. Kafka Liz (talk) 11:34, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
Yep. We bakers say straight dough when we mean all the ingredients are thrown into the mixer. There are a lot of other kinds of dough, like 'sponge and dough' or 'quarter-sponge', but commercially they are hardly remembered anymore. I think the infamous Wonder Bread is still made on a sponge, though. Alfarero (talk) 23:30, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Merger proposal

I'd like to propose merging Pouliche into the section on yeast leavening. The pouliche article covers much of the same information already included here. Thoughts? Kafka Liz (talk) 19:00, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

Since no one objects, then, I'll go ahead with the merge. Kafka Liz (talk) 12:55, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Historical dates in "Cultural and political importance" error

The assize of bread and wine (1266/67) is 50 years after the magna carta (1215), not 100 years before, as it says in the article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.27.143.125 (talk) 23:07, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] History of Bread

Wow. The Chorleywood Process was the latest historical development mentioned when I found this page. It was invented in the early 60's. Now as a retail in-store baker I find myself using such sophisticated bases and mixes that I am amazed anybody still makes bread with a high-speed blender. I guess the big boys still do...

I love the anecdote from Elizabeth David's "English Bread and Yeast Cookery" about a housewife who tried her hand at making her husband some rolls. "Did you make these yourself?" he asked. When she replied that she had, he exclaimed, "Then what on earth do they do to the bread in the shops?" Alfarero (talk) 23:25, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Missing words

From the (very long) "Bread in different cultures" section:

In Ireland it is traditionally held that the end of a loaf of bread the 'heel' of the loaf more commonly known as; is the best part of the loaf.

Commonly known as semicolon? I've never heard it called that before! Loganberry (Talk) 15:51, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

I've fixed it. — Wenli (reply here) 05:25, 24 May 2008 (UTC)