The History of Bread: From Pre-historic to Modern Times. John Ashton
examples—round, triangular, and square—in the British Museum, some of which must have been a foot across, and over an inch thick; the three examples given on page 27 being 5in. in diameter, and ½in. thick; 7 ditto and ½ ditto; whilst the ornamented cake is 3–½in. in diameter and ¾in. thick.
But there were professional bakers in Egypt, as we see in some of the tomb-pictures. In the Biblical story of Joseph we find that ‘the butler of the King of Egypt and his baker had offended their lord the King of Egypt’; and the Rabbi Solomon says their offences were the butler not having perceived a fly in Pharaoh’s cup, and the baker having got a stone into the royal bread, so that Pharaoh thought they were conspiring against his life. We know they were put in prison with Joseph, and related their dreams to him. The dream of the Opheh, or chief baker, was that he ‘had three white baskets on his head, and in the uppermost basket there was all manner of bake meats for Pharaoh.’ The Bible story of Joseph goes on to tell us how, in the years of plenty, he providentially stored up the excess of corn to meet the years of famine, and how the Israelites sent to Egypt for food, and subsequently abode in that land.
Egyptian Methods of Bread-Making.
Thanks to Assyrian art, and to the enduring qualities of bronze, we are able to see how that ancient people made their bread (at least in the camp) during the reign of Shalmaneser II., son of Assur-nasir-abli, who began to govern Assyria about the year 860 B.C., and died in 825 B.C. On the bronze bands of the great gates of Balawat are recorded the warlike doings of Shalmaneser II. in detail. In almost every camp that is represented are men depicted as preparing bread against the return of the, of course, victorious soldiery: we see them mealing the corn, kneading the dough, making it into flat, round cakes, and, finally, piling these up in large heaps ready for the hungry warriors.
These gates were found in the year 1877 by Mr. Hormuzd Rassam, who, whilst excavating for the Trustees of the British Museum on the site of ancient Nineveh, began also excavations at a mound called Balawat, about 15 miles east of Mosul, and nine miles from Nimroud. Having received, as a present, before his departure for the East, some fragments of chased bronze, said to have been found in this mound, he naturally had the greatest wish to follow up the indication of a new store of antiquities. He experienced some difficulty from the villagers of Balawat, as the mound had been used by them for some years as a burial ground, and their scruples having been overcome, the result was the finding of these beautiful bronzes in fragments. They were skilfully restored at the British Museum, where they now are, and rank among the best of Assyrian antiquities.
Egyptian Bread.
Egyptian Cake Seller.
The old Assyrians knew the value of irrigation in growing their crops, and the remains of aqueducts and hydraulic machines which remain in Babylonia bear witness to an advanced civilisation; these are constructed of masonry, which slanted up to the height of two feet, and, disposed at right angles to the river, they conducted the water from 200 to 2000 yards into the interior.
The food of the poor seems to have consisted of grain, such as wheat, or barley, moistened with water, kneaded in a bowl, rolled into cakes and baked in the hot ashes.
CHAPTER III.
BREAD IN PALESTINE.
Of the bread of the ancient Hebrews we know nothing, except from their sacred books; but these contain a large store of knowledge. Their cereals seem to have consisted only of wheat, barley, rye (or it may be spelt), and millet, but they cultivated leguminous plants, such as beans and lentils. It is impossible to say accurately when these books were written, so that in the following notices respecting the bread of the Hebrews I take the sequence in which I find them placed in the Bible. It is impossible to do otherwise, as their chronology is such an open question.
At first, in all probability, the normal course of pre-historic man was followed—wheat and barley grew wild, were first eaten raw, and then parched. Of this latter and primitive method of cooking cereals we have several notices. It was used as a sacrifice, as we see in Leviticus ii. 16: ‘And the priest shall burn the memorial of it, part of the beaten corn thereof, and part of the oil thereof, with all the frankincense thereof: it is an offering made by fire unto the Lord.’ That parched corn was at that time a food we find in Levit. xxiii. 14: ‘And ye shall eat neither bread, nor parched corn, nor green ears, until the self-same day that ye have brought an offering unto your God.’ We next find it as the food of labouring people in Ruth ii. 14, when Boaz ‘reached her parched corn, and she did eat, and was sufficed, and left.’
Mention is again made of it in I. Sam. xvii., when Goliath of Gath challenged the men of Israel. Jesse’s three sons had followed Saul to the battle, and the anxious father had sent his youngest son David, with provisions for them, and a present to their commander, vv. 17, 18: ‘And Jesse said unto David his son, Take now for thy brethren an ephah4 of this parched corn, and these ten loaves, and run to the camp to thy brethren; and carry these ten cheeses unto the captain of their thousand, and look how thy brethren fare, and take their pledge.’ We see, I. Sam. xxv. 18, how Abigail, Nabal’s wife, in order to propitiate David, ‘made haste, and took 200 loaves, and two bottles of wine, and five sheep ready dressed, and five measures of parched corn, and 100 clusters of raisins, and 200 cakes of figs, and laid them on asses.’ The last we hear of parched corn as food is in II. Sam. xvii. 27, 28, when David arrived at Mahanaim. Shobi, Machir, and Barzillai ‘brought beds, and basons, and earthen vessels, and wheat, and barley, and flour, and parched corn, and beans, and lentils, and parched pulse.’ In England this parching is sometimes applied to peas, and, indeed, there is a saying comparing an extremely lively person ‘to a parched pea in a frying pan,’ and in America ‘pop corn,’ or parched maize, is very popular.
Threshing corn we first read of in Deut. xxv. 4, when we find the following direction given: ‘Thou shalt not muzzle the ox when he treadeth out the corn,’ a practice which the natives of Aleppo, and some other Eastern places, still religiously observe.
How Gideon (Jud. vi. 11) or Oman (I. Chron. xxi. 20) threshed, whether by oxen or by flail, we cannot tell, but in Isaiah xxviii. 27, 28, we find five methods of threshing then in vogue. ‘For the fitches [this is supposed to be the Nigella sativa, whose seeds are used as a condiment, like coriander or caraway] are not threshed with a threshing instrument, neither is a cart wheel turned about upon the cummin; but the fitches are beaten out with a staff, and the cummin with a rod. Bread corn is bruised; because he will not ever be threshing it, nor break it with the wheel of his cart, nor bruise it with his horsemen.’ In Lowth on Isaiah we find this passage made somewhat clearer:
‘The dill is not beaten out with the corn-drag;
Nor is the Wheel of the Wain made to turn upon the cummin.
But the dill is beaten out with the Staff,
And the cummin with the Flail, but
The bread corn with the Threshing-Wain;
And not for ever will he continue thus to thresh it,
Nor vex it with the Wheel of its Wain,
Nor to bruise it with the Hoofs of his Cattle.’
The Staff and Flail were used for that grain that was too tender to be treated in any other method. The Drag consisted of a sort of frame of strong planks, made rough at the bottom with hard stones or iron; it was drawn by horses or oxen