The Wheeling intelligencer. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1903-1961, 1914-05-27
HISTORY OF BAKING
IS ANCIENT AS FIRE

The John Dough editor assigned a reporter a long
week ago TO get a story showing who invented baking
and when, with some illustrations and a couple OF in
terviews. The editor Of most Sunday supplement sec
tons would have had little trouble ia securing such a
story from any OF his STAFF men. Even some Of the
magazine, would probably put q eircumstantial yarn
into type In short order. John Dough however, is try
ing to be honest. lie wants 20 tell the public a lot
about baking, but whatever he tells must be as near
the truth as he can come. John Dough IS willing to
admit that there Is, even 20 this day, such q thing as
bad bread, and that stomachs, tempcrs. regulations,
households, fortunes and whole nations have been
ruined by half baked stuff made out of poor materials
badly handled. He is even Inclined to insist that there
Is sui room Tor Improvement in the science OF baking
lie wants baking 10 he an exact science and he wants
the history OF baking 70 be exact. So the reporter as
signed TO the task Of finding the first baker is still on
the job, and he IL giving q little talk this week merely
20 indicate some OF the things he docsn', know.
Some call baking an art, which IL Is until IL becomes
scientifically exact. Men and women baked FOR thous-
ands OF years before they even began to guess the
chemistry OF baking. The best guesscr as TO materials,
time OF mixing. and temperatures was the best artist
Men have been longing for THE kind mother used TO
make Tor centuries and centuries. The origin Of
baking. like that OF most arts Of primary Importance,
was not heralded to the world in exact printed state
ments, written by the inventor and put into perma-
nent record by the printer and the patent office. IL is
hidden in the past. II began long, long ago.
Excavations conducted on the sites Of some OF the
numerous lake dwellings of Switzerland have resulted
in the discovery Of evidence that bread was made there
as early as the stone period. Stones for grinding
gram DdklnB DTtHu, ana even some lOaNeS OF the
bread itself, have been disinterred the bread preserved
by being carbonized in the FIRE which frequently de-
stroyed the homes OF the primitive inhabitants of that
section of the world.
Cakes dug up at Wager are round In shane. from an
inch to an inch and a half in diameter. The dough did
not consist of meal, but Of gfains OF corn partially
crushed. In written history bread is mentioned al al
most the very beginning. Egypt mde bread before the
time when II set the children of Israel TO making
bricks without straw. The Egyptians baked cakes and
loaves of many varieties and shapes in which they
used several kinds of flour, and they favored the bak-
Ing with various aromatic ingredients. They seemed
TO take delight not only in the taste of the bread to
the mouth, but in pleasing the eye and the sense Of
smell with the products Of their ovens.
Civilization carried the art Of baking with il from
the Nile TO Greece and Greece in turn taught the art
and the need of baking of the Romans. The b~akeshops
OF those days were also the mills and the granaries
the grain being pounded and sifted in the bakeries
The cereals in the Mediterranean countries became
the staff of life, as they are today in this country. but
the art OF baking moved but slowly TO the north Of
Europe or into Asia.
One thing in the history Of bread making is certain
For century after century nearly all of the work Of
grinding the grain and making the dough was done by
nand. Baking machinery though not often consider
Ell by the average consumer. has been as reyoIution,,y
in its effects as the invention Of the. cotton Gin the
sewing machine, the steam engine and the rolling
mill. Many bakers still living will tell YOU that when
they were boys they learned the bakers trade because
they were convinced that il was impossible to MY
and make bread by machinery. IL was regarded A.
certain that so long as the human race continued 70
use bread every loaf must be handled skiIfuIly nv
human hands, patted into just the right share and that
the trade would never be subjected TO the revolutions
which had come about in many othe- occupa'ions
Even with the enormous increase in ths production ~
wheat and wheat flour il would 10 been imnoeeihIs
to emanciPatc woman from the RISK Of baking the
bread Of the nation without the aid of modern ma.
chinery. The dough mixer the divider and the con-
tnuous oven have made a new era possible.