7 ms·

Bread in the Middle Ages (2013)

56 points by alexellisuk 5y ago

hackermailman 5y ago
If you like this sort of histotainment BBC used to make good series like Tudor Monastery (1500s) https://youtu.be/0-uqQknglio https://youtu.be/0-uqQknglio or their original 'Tales of the Green Valley' (1620) https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL6LJQOAaGj2magtWkqqRQOUKF9SOK-IIt https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL6LJQOAaGj2magtWkqqRQ... both where historians attempt to farm as they did in the period, capturing wild yeast from apple trees to make bread and ale which Tudors lived off of
- nabilhat 5y ago
  There are several more of these! Ruth, Peter, and (usually) Alex are so amazingly good at this. Random fact: Ruth Goodman's demonstrations of how laundry was washed through the ages and why those methods worked has changed how I do my own laundry. It turns out the washing machine isn't nearly as effective as a half-hearted manual wash with a laundry plunger, while causing substantially more wear.
  - floren 5y ago
    Funny, watching those shows had me frequently thinking "yeah, I could do that... seems ok" (I have a farming background) except for the laundry stuff :) Well, the laundry stuff and all the particulate garbage they were breathing from the wood and coal fires.
- thinkmassive 5y ago
  On a related tangent, I found the book Against the Grain, by James C Scott, to be very interesting. In it he discusses how farming existed long before cities, and how certain grain crops contributed to (and were leveraged for) the emergence of city states. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/34324534-against-the-grain https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/34324534-against-the-gra...
brandrick 5y ago
Bread in 2021.... https://www.reddit.com/r/Cheap_Meals/comments/rvy340/bread_in_a_can/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Cheap_Meals/comments/rvy340/bread_i...
- phonypc 5y ago
  Surely canned bread is as old as canning.
  - lapetitejort 5y ago
    I'd argue that bread in 2021 has returned more to its roots thanks to the sourdough trend from 2020. I started baking along with everyone and I just cannot go back to mass produced bread.
    - AlanYx 5y ago
      True! I also find it fascinating that the first recipe in the linked article (Wroclaw Trencher Bread) includes beer as an ingredient, which has had a popular revival recently as a bread hack to add maltiness/flavor. I've seen YouTubers complain that it isn't "authentic" somehow, but it looks like it really is more traditional than it seems!
      - ch4s3 5y ago
        Any premodern bread that wasn’t made like sourdough was made with beer barm. Bakeries and breweries were typical colocated. I’m not sure what was done in predominantly Muslim areas for yeast though, since they wouldn’t have had breweries.
    - chihuahua 5y ago
      For me, there's 2 entirely different kinds of bread: * homemade bread: good flavor and texture * supermarket "bread" for sandwiches: consistent size, soft texture for a sandwich where the fillings don't fall out, especially for eating away from home Supermarket "bread" is more of an edible wrapper, but it has its purpose.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
voz_ 5y ago
Bookmarked to read for later. Thank you for sharing :) Wanted to also say - ACOUP, the best history blog I have read yet, has a great series on bread, wheat, and farming in the Western European/Mediterranean, (iirc between ancient times through medieval) https://acoup.blog/2020/07/24/collections-bread-how-did-they-make-it-part-i-farmers/ https://acoup.blog/2020/07/24/collections-bread-how-did-they...
blippage 5y ago
Two things I know about bread: Roman soldiers baked bread, using beer as a raising agent instead of yeast, on account of the fast that beer was readily available. A "baker's dozen" is the number 13. This is believed to stem from medieval England, where bakers gave an extra loaf in order to avoid penalties for being underweight.
- vestrigi 5y ago
  Compared to ancient beer the yeast of modern beer is killed off before bottling, so you can't use it as a yeast replacement, but instead this allows the beer to be stored for a long time.
  - OJFord 5y ago
    'Killed off'? Or just filtered? (Genuine question - I brew a bit, and have used mine for bread, but don't really know anything about commercial brewing.)
    - bloggie 5y ago
      I'm just a home gamer so could be wrong. In large commercial breweries it is killed off, flocculated out with a flocculation agent then filtered out. It is killed at a certain time so the amount of remaining sugar is controlled. Some microbrews don't do this and you can recuperate live yeast from those beers for brewing or baking.
    - rainbowzootsuit 5y ago
      I've always heard filtered to bring it to sterility, but there have to be other steps to flocculate. Micro brews or traditional European brews are often bottle finished. Some micro breweries use a finishing yeast that's different than the fermentation yeast to keep that proprietary. I think anchor brewing comes to mind for this.
  - ectopod 5y ago
    You need bottle conditioned beer. Many wheat beers are.
Wronnay 5y ago
https://web.archive.org/web/20220105170648/https://www.medievalists.net/2013/07/bread-in-the-middle-ages/ https://web.archive.org/web/20220105170648/https://www.medie... When you don't want to deactivate your AdBlocker...
- eps 5y ago
  The original rendered just fine with my adblocker on.
eps 5y ago
Tangentially related - I recently discovered poolish, which is a form of pre-ferment that helps dramatically improving the taste of bread baked using commercial dry yeast. If you are about to make a loaf, take half of the flour, mix it with water 1:1, add a minscule amount of yeast and let it ferment overnight. Then add the rest of recipe and bake as usual. What you get is a bread that taste bread-ier. Sounds silly, but it's just ridiculuosly good. If anyone's interested in specifics, the Ken Forkish book (Flour Water Salt Yeast) has a good recipe. Highly recommended to try if you are into breadmaking.
- lapetitejort 5y ago
  I had a revelation recently regarding commercial dry yeast and poolish. The sour part of sourdough comes from the lactobacillus bacteria making lactic acid. Commercial dry yeast makes for a fast rise, which isn't enough time for the minuscule amount of bacteria that's present in the flour to flourish (pun intended?). Letting the mixture ferment overnight lets the bacteria grow more, which creates the flavor. My guess is this technique can be used to stand up a sourdough starter from scratch faster than mixing raw flour with water over the course of a week or so.
  - phonypc 5y ago
    The benefit of poolish and other styles of pre-ferment is usually attributed to enzymatic breakdown of proteins and starches (especially of starch into dextrins and maltose, which benefits the color of baked bread as well). An overnight ferment probably isn't long enough to get a substantial bacterial population going, hence the multi-day or week process of creating a sourdough starter. Why would the addition of commercial yeast speed the bacteria along?
    - lapetitejort 5y ago
      I'll preface that I'm a beginner and not a food scientist in any right. I tried to make a starter twice and failed both times. I can't say for certain why, but it could have been from impatience not seeing the start rise every day while the colonies built up. If I were to see the starter rise due to yeast action, I would be more likely to maintain it, which would give the bacteria more time to create a colony. So it's not speeding the bacteria along, but rather "faking it until you make it".

56 points by alexellisuk 5y ago

If you like this sort of histotainment BBC used to make good series like Tudor Monastery (1500s) https://youtu.be/0-uqQknglio https://youtu.be/0-uqQknglio or their original 'Tales of the Green Valley' (1620) https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL6LJQOAaGj2magtWkqqRQOUKF9SOK-IIt https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL6LJQOAaGj2magtWkqqRQ... both where historians attempt to farm as they did in the period, capturing wild yeast from apple trees to make bread and ale which Tudors lived off of

nabilhat 5y ago
There are several more of these! Ruth, Peter, and (usually) Alex are so amazingly good at this. Random fact: Ruth Goodman's demonstrations of how laundry was washed through the ages and why those methods worked has changed how I do my own laundry. It turns out the washing machine isn't nearly as effective as a half-hearted manual wash with a laundry plunger, while causing substantially more wear.
- floren 5y ago
  Funny, watching those shows had me frequently thinking "yeah, I could do that... seems ok" (I have a farming background) except for the laundry stuff :) Well, the laundry stuff and all the particulate garbage they were breathing from the wood and coal fires.
thinkmassive 5y ago
On a related tangent, I found the book Against the Grain, by James C Scott, to be very interesting. In it he discusses how farming existed long before cities, and how certain grain crops contributed to (and were leveraged for) the emergence of city states. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/34324534-against-the-grain https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/34324534-against-the-gra...

brandrick 5y ago

Bread in 2021.... https://www.reddit.com/r/Cheap_Meals/comments/rvy340/bread_in_a_can/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Cheap_Meals/comments/rvy340/bread_i...

phonypc 5y ago
Surely canned bread is as old as canning.
- lapetitejort 5y ago
  I'd argue that bread in 2021 has returned more to its roots thanks to the sourdough trend from 2020. I started baking along with everyone and I just cannot go back to mass produced bread.
  - AlanYx 5y ago
    True! I also find it fascinating that the first recipe in the linked article (Wroclaw Trencher Bread) includes beer as an ingredient, which has had a popular revival recently as a bread hack to add maltiness/flavor. I've seen YouTubers complain that it isn't "authentic" somehow, but it looks like it really is more traditional than it seems!
    - ch4s3 5y ago
      Any premodern bread that wasn’t made like sourdough was made with beer barm. Bakeries and breweries were typical colocated. I’m not sure what was done in predominantly Muslim areas for yeast though, since they wouldn’t have had breweries.
  - chihuahua 5y ago
    For me, there's 2 entirely different kinds of bread: * homemade bread: good flavor and texture * supermarket "bread" for sandwiches: consistent size, soft texture for a sandwich where the fillings don't fall out, especially for eating away from home Supermarket "bread" is more of an edible wrapper, but it has its purpose.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

voz_ 5y ago

Bookmarked to read for later. Thank you for sharing :) Wanted to also say - ACOUP, the best history blog I have read yet, has a great series on bread, wheat, and farming in the Western European/Mediterranean, (iirc between ancient times through medieval) https://acoup.blog/2020/07/24/collections-bread-how-did-they-make-it-part-i-farmers/ https://acoup.blog/2020/07/24/collections-bread-how-did-they...

blippage 5y ago

Two things I know about bread: Roman soldiers baked bread, using beer as a raising agent instead of yeast, on account of the fast that beer was readily available. A "baker's dozen" is the number 13. This is believed to stem from medieval England, where bakers gave an extra loaf in order to avoid penalties for being underweight.

vestrigi 5y ago
Compared to ancient beer the yeast of modern beer is killed off before bottling, so you can't use it as a yeast replacement, but instead this allows the beer to be stored for a long time.
- OJFord 5y ago
  'Killed off'? Or just filtered? (Genuine question - I brew a bit, and have used mine for bread, but don't really know anything about commercial brewing.)
  - bloggie 5y ago
    I'm just a home gamer so could be wrong. In large commercial breweries it is killed off, flocculated out with a flocculation agent then filtered out. It is killed at a certain time so the amount of remaining sugar is controlled. Some microbrews don't do this and you can recuperate live yeast from those beers for brewing or baking.
  - rainbowzootsuit 5y ago
    I've always heard filtered to bring it to sterility, but there have to be other steps to flocculate. Micro brews or traditional European brews are often bottle finished. Some micro breweries use a finishing yeast that's different than the fermentation yeast to keep that proprietary. I think anchor brewing comes to mind for this.
- ectopod 5y ago
  You need bottle conditioned beer. Many wheat beers are.

Wronnay 5y ago

https://web.archive.org/web/20220105170648/https://www.medievalists.net/2013/07/bread-in-the-middle-ages/ https://web.archive.org/web/20220105170648/https://www.medie... When you don't want to deactivate your AdBlocker...

eps 5y ago
The original rendered just fine with my adblocker on.

eps 5y ago

Tangentially related - I recently discovered poolish, which is a form of pre-ferment that helps dramatically improving the taste of bread baked using commercial dry yeast. If you are about to make a loaf, take half of the flour, mix it with water 1:1, add a minscule amount of yeast and let it ferment overnight. Then add the rest of recipe and bake as usual. What you get is a bread that taste bread-ier. Sounds silly, but it's just ridiculuosly good. If anyone's interested in specifics, the Ken Forkish book (Flour Water Salt Yeast) has a good recipe. Highly recommended to try if you are into breadmaking.

lapetitejort 5y ago
I had a revelation recently regarding commercial dry yeast and poolish. The sour part of sourdough comes from the lactobacillus bacteria making lactic acid. Commercial dry yeast makes for a fast rise, which isn't enough time for the minuscule amount of bacteria that's present in the flour to flourish (pun intended?). Letting the mixture ferment overnight lets the bacteria grow more, which creates the flavor. My guess is this technique can be used to stand up a sourdough starter from scratch faster than mixing raw flour with water over the course of a week or so.
- phonypc 5y ago
  The benefit of poolish and other styles of pre-ferment is usually attributed to enzymatic breakdown of proteins and starches (especially of starch into dextrins and maltose, which benefits the color of baked bread as well). An overnight ferment probably isn't long enough to get a substantial bacterial population going, hence the multi-day or week process of creating a sourdough starter. Why would the addition of commercial yeast speed the bacteria along?
  - lapetitejort 5y ago
    I'll preface that I'm a beginner and not a food scientist in any right. I tried to make a starter twice and failed both times. I can't say for certain why, but it could have been from impatience not seeing the start rise every day while the colonies built up. If I were to see the starter rise due to yeast action, I would be more likely to maintain it, which would give the bacteria more time to create a colony. So it's not speeding the bacteria along, but rather "faking it until you make it".