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Bread, How Did They Make It? Addendum: Rice
- natcombs 6y agoA little known fact is that Germany resorted to using sawdust in bread when they had flour shortages during the world wars https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kommissbrot https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kommissbrot Are ther any other strange flour replacements that people have heard of?
- gnud 6y agoIn Scandinavia, before potatoes, people sometimes used the inner layer of bark from trees as a supplement to grains when there was a shortage. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bark_bread#Bark_bread_as_food https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bark_bread#Bark_bread_as_food
- hinkley 6y agoSurvival books still sometimes refer to it. Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't this layer also contain minerals and some of the sap? So it would have some value as a supplement and not just a filler. My favorite in this category is separating the minerals from grass by chewing (not swallowing) or boiling it in a tea. Not much calorie value, but it'll prevent deficiencies while you find a staple food or burn body fat. And you can do the former while doing other survival chores (time seems to be the dominant resource you have to manage).
- Aromasin 6y agoIn Scandinavia they reguarly added inner bark to flour during famine. In Russia, nettle and orache were used. There a good article which goes through what many cultures eat during famine below [1]. Some of it is pretty horrific: > “…I have no idea how I managed to survive and stay alive. In 1933 we tried to survive the best we could. We collected grass, goose-foot, burdocks, rotten potatoes and made pancakes, soups from putrid beans or nettles. > Collected clay from the trees and ate it, ate sparrows, pigeons, cats, dead and live dogs." It goes further into mentions of infanticide canabilism which I won't quote directly here but is worth reading. Birch inner bark flour seems to be "common" as far as obscure flour goes. Apparently it wasn't even a famine food as such, and just a normal part of their diet. [2] [1] https://www.askaprepper.com/ingenious-foods-people-made-famines/ https://www.askaprepper.com/ingenious-foods-people-made-fami... [2] https://practicalselfreliance.com/birch-bark-flour/ https://practicalselfreliance.com/birch-bark-flour/
- bane 6y agoIn some ways that's not terribly different than one of the traditional starch sources in Papau New Guinea, sago. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sago https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sago
- blacksmith_tb 6y agoI am not sure what to make of "collected clay from trees" - sap? Lichens? Seems like a problem with the translation.
- ljf 6y agoI assumed sap too. As a kid we had a load of sycamore trees - a close relative of the maple. My dad saw a documentary about tapping maple trees and he set out to tap the sycamore - it tasted vile.
- Nursie 6y agoBut apparently Birch sap is fine, it seems to be enjoying a fad as a successor to coconut water at the moment.
- GordonS 6y agoHow the hell do you eat a live dog?
- s5300 6y agoErr... to give you a genuine answer - by experiencing real starvation. Have you never seen any cartel execution/torture videos? Those people are literally just doing it because a higher up told them, they're making money, and stimmed out of their minds on a daily basis. Eating a dog alive is really nothing to a human that's actually facing death from starvation. Please don't forget we're just animals.
- joseluis 6y agoI believe what that means is they found the dog alive, killed it themselves, cooked it (I hope) and ate it. In contrast with finding it already dead, like a road kill, which they eat also...
- boudewijnrempt 6y agoMost bread in England in Victorian times was adulterated with plaster of paris.
- hinkley 6y agoI think one of the British history shows mentioned gypsum, which is just a name for Plaster of Paris that sounds less like something you should keep out of your mouth.
- fuzzer37 6y agoSome people did an (albeit informal) experiment trying to find out how much sawdust you can add to a rice krispy treat before people start to notice. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AKDal51f5LU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AKDal51f5LU
- soperj 6y agoAmericans basically do the same thing with their cheese, but not because of shortages, it's because they don't want to shred it themselves.
- sosborn 6y ago“Cellulose is cellulose,” regardless of if whether it comes from wood pulp or celery, says Michael Jacobson, executive director of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a group that advocates healthier, more nutritious food. He says no research points to health problems related to consuming cellulose. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Center_for_Science_in_the_Public_Interest https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Center_for_Science_in_the_Publ... https://www.thekitchn.com/cellulose-the-wood-pulp-in-you-146276 https://www.thekitchn.com/cellulose-the-wood-pulp-in-you-146...
- r00fus 6y agoSo glad I ditched pre-packaged shredded cheese - it only takes like 5 min to shred a large cheese block and that lasts for weeks in my fridge (and the cheese block lasts for even longer so I always have shredded cheese and a few blocks waiting to be shredded). Note: means without cheese are difficult if you have kids.
- hinkley 6y agoI don't use a lot of shredded cheese, but grated is harder to avoid.
- ARandomerDude 6y agoAlso during the (US) Civil War, acorns, peas, and all kinds of other things were used as coffee additives or substitutes. https://scholarworks.uttyler.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1024&context=cw_newstopics https://scholarworks.uttyler.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article...
- Balgair 6y agoThat one is really interesting, as the US South actually does have a caffeine producing plant native to the area: Ilex vomitoria It also goes by Yaupon, or Black Drink, and is similar to Yerba Mate. The native americans in the area typically used it in rituals to the point of vomiting, hence the name. Due to this history, though, it was not used as a caffeine substitute during the war. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ilex_vomitoria https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ilex_vomitoria
- agumonkey 6y agoI'm still fascinated by the fact that the fact that cellulose is mostly sugar.
- vondur 6y agoIt literally is two glucose molecules bonded via a condensation reaction. The linkage between the molecules is what makes it different from starch, and subsequently what makes it not useful as a food source for most animals.
- agumonkey 6y agoIs that linkage much more energy dense compared to starch, I always wonder why so few life forms digest cellulose.
- protomyth 6y agoAdding sawdust to nutmeg gave nutmeg dealers a poor reputation resulting in an insult in the 1860 election of Stephen Douglas calling Abraham Lincoln a nutmeg dealer (he threw in some other insults in the same line). horrid looking wretch, sooty and scoundrelly (sic) in aspect, a cross between the nutmeg dealer, the horse swapper and the night man
- SECProto 6y ago> A little known fact is that Germany resorted to using sawdust in bread when they had flour shortages during the world wars That wiki article suggests the use of sawdust in bread during WWI, but for a reference uses another encyclopedia-like source [1] (which does not cite any reference, and whose about page suggests it was written by a single individual). While it may be true, I'd be very hesitant to accept it without seeing a better source (and preferably one made before the wiki-circular-citation thing started). [1] http://www.zum.de/whkmla/economy/period/warecwwi.html http://www.zum.de/whkmla/economy/period/warecwwi.html
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- hinkley 6y agoSomeone once put it to me that cooking is a process of converting inedible calories (combustibles) into edible ones. Mostly by cooking difficult to digest food, but also increasing longevity of other foods (eg, smoked meat).
- hinkley 6y agoSomewhat tangentially, the British during WWII rediscovered that rose hips contain vitamin C. I don't know the degree to which roses were embedded into the collective consciousness before but they certainly earned it at that point. Rose hip tea helped with the supply constraint pressure of the U-Boats.
- 082349872349872 6y agoAnyone know which WWII british cookbook contained the recipe for "life sustaining glop"?
- selimthegrim 6y agoDoesn’t brown rice inhibit iron uptake?
- gruez 6y agoSource? A casual search suggests the opposite: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19919516/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19919516/
- klipt 6y agoWhole grains do have anti nutrients, e.g. phytic acid, which can inhibit uptake of some nutrients, but whether that's a problem or not depends heavily on the rest of your diet.
- hinkley 6y agoThey tell anemics to stagger intake of certain nutrients so your body doesn't have to choose between iron and other things, such as calcium. They're also told to put ascorbic acid on all of their iron sources as it enhances absorption. Get some lemon juice on that fish.
- RcouF1uZ4gsC 6y ago> But it also goes to the difficulty many Chinese states experienced in maintaining large and effective cavalry arms without becoming reliant on Steppe peoples for horses. Unlike Europe or the Near East, where there are spots of good horse country here and there, often less suited to intensive wheat cultivation, most horse-pasturage in the rice-farming zone could have – and was – turned over to far more productive rice cultivation. The bigger reason why China did not produce horses for cavalry was they couldn't. Soil in China is deficient in selenium, which is required by horses to produce strong muscles. From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silk_Road#Initiation_in_China_(130_BCE) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silk_Road#Initiation_in_China_... "The soil in China lacked Selenium, a deficiency which contributed to muscular weakness and reduced growth in horses.[40] Consequently, horses in China were too frail to support the weight of a Chinese soldier.[41]"
- xapata 6y ago> The bigger reason It's a tricky thing estimating coefficients for non-repeatable experiments like much of history. I'd prefer to phrase it as "another significant factor."
- jbay808 6y agoChina is an enormous country. Surely this wasn't universally true?
- yorwba 6y agoThe reference cited on Wikipedia is available on Google Books and has a map of selenium in China on page 51 https://books.google.de/books?id=IaQeC5fxYlQC&q=Selenium+ecological+landscape+map+of+China#v=snippet&q=Selenium%20ecological%20landscape%20map%20of%20China&f=false https://books.google.de/books?id=IaQeC5fxYlQC&q=Selenium+eco... The area with low selenium content is quite large and encompasses much of central China, where Chang'an, the capital of the Han dynasty at the time of the War of the Heavenly Horses (fought over horses) was located. (The modern city of Xi'an in the same place is marked on the selenium map.) So the theory that selenium deficiency led to difficulty maintaining cavalry without importing horses from elsewhere seems plausible.
- xapata 6y agoOn a tangent, the author has an article in the Atlantic about the increasingly strained economics of universities. Combine that with the novelty of Patreon's fundraising and it's worth pointing out the author's Patreon page. He has a very reasonable "buy me a coffee" subscription. It's no one's fault that a chunk of society goes down the humanities PhD rabbit hole only to discover the adjunct professor job market is bonkers (some of the world's smartest [or some semblance of it] people competing intensely for almost no money). But, I think blogs and subscriptions like his are a potential way to remedy the situation. https://www.patreon.com/user?u=20122096 https://www.patreon.com/user?u=20122096
- SpicyLemonZest 6y agoYeah, strongly seconded. This kind of blog is exactly what's great about having academic historians around.
- CydeWeys 6y agoI've been reading him for a long time now, and I just wish he'd do a podcast or a video essay YouTube channel or something (or partner with someone skilled in these areas to make it happen). He's much more knowledgeable than the existing people doing this in these areas, yet he has a tiny fraction of the audience solely because of his choice of blogging medium. His actual content is genuinely interesting and obviously well-researched and I'd put him up favorably against any of the others.
- ksdale 6y agoIronically, I follow Bret's work over other, more famous people, because I prefer reading over listening or watching.
- boyband6666 6y agoSame. I can read quickly, and when suits me. Video I have to be sat at a computer paying attention which is time I can use for other things, and go at their speed.
- teucris 6y agoMy favorite insight: > “[...] tenancy conditions tended to be more favorable in rice-farming areas than in wheat-farming ones, with a lower portion of the total harvest going to the landlord. Thus the irony that precisely because labor was so abundant, rice farming tended towards labor-intensive methods and solutions, which in turn improved returns to labor (compared to returns to capital), putting the small farmers, despite their abundance, in a marginally better bargaining position.”