Bread in the world

Along with milk and honey, bread is probably the food with the highest sacred load. Food with
ancient origins, bread has accompanied the entire gastronomic and cultural history of many human
tribes on tables and at feasts. Guard food for many peoples, among which the Moldavians stand out
at the forefront, bread brings with it many unsuspected aspects. From the controversial bread of
today, full of loosens and harmful "e's," to grandma's test-baked pita, and from the pastries of the
East to the breads multiplied by Christ, this is the food that has most strongly marked the evolution
of the world. as we know it today.

Researchers who have dared to find out how ancient this truly legendary food is have been amazed
to discover that bread (in various forms and compositions, obviously) is a much older food on the
scale of history than was commonly thought. Bread and its derivatives played a particularly
important role in the process by which the first human communities changed not only their diet but
also their lifestyle, thus moving from the stage of hunter-gatherers to that of farmers. The diet of
more and more human communities has therefore become one based on carbohydrates from
cereals.

The period of Antiquity led to the appearance of many varieties of bread in various forms and
composed of many ingredients, in fact some of these ancient bread recipes have remained almost
unchanged to this day. Famous authors and personalities of the Ancient World such as Pliny the
Elder, Athenaeus, Solon or Diphilus told us many details about bread, as well as about the ways in
which this food was viewed in the Hellenistic and Roman worlds. Later, in the Middle Ages, bread
gained even more ground. It was no longer just a staple food, but an indispensable presence on
people's tables. The emergence of the Modern Age, capitalism and industrialization has also affected
bread. After the advent of machinery and equipment for processing and producing bread on an
industrial scale, this food was also included in the vast and complex universe of modern food.

Today, bread remains probably the most important food in the world. In Germany alone there are
currently about 1,300 varieties of bakery, and in the UK about 200, also in this country only less than
12 million loaves are sold daily. In fact, based on an international study, it turned out that about 50%
of the breads produced daily worldwide are used in the production of sandwiches.

In conclusion, we must not forget that for us Moldovans, bread also meant earning a living and
ensuring our daily existence, according to the expression "earn your bread".