[Sca-cooks] true medieval bread recipes

[JIMCHEVAL at aol.com]

The distinction that applies for our period is between bread from the  
Western, Christian portion of Europe as opposed to bread from an Arab or  
Mideastern tradition. Recipes exist for the latter, not for the former, before  
the end of the Middle Ages.
 
The breads were very different and, I believe, used in somewhat different  
ways. But Western bread was not made in pans (which, strangely, someone just 
 asked me about last night) until the late nineteenth century. It WAS, more 
often  than not, leavened. I don't know about the tradition of bakers in 
Arab culture,  but bread in the Christian world tended to be made by 
professionals, except in  the early Middle Ages (when we really don't know if it 
sometimes still was after  the fall of the Roman Empire).

The basic issue is that these are very  different sorts of bread from very 
different cultures; we have recipes from the  period for one, not for the 
other. And again, I'm referring to the simplest,  most common form of bread, 
not pastries or other variants.
 
Jim  Chevallier
_www.chezjim.com_ (http://www.chezjim.com/) 

FRENCH BREAD HISTORY:  Seventeenth century bread
http://leslefts.blogspot.com/2016/02/french-food-history-seventeenth-century
.html









In a message dated 9/20/2016 5:31:33 P.M. Pacific Daylight Time,  
alyskatharine at gmail.com writes:

Greetings! Someone commented that a definition was needed for  "bread". 
Is dough that encompasses fillings or has various toppings  (honey, oil, 
cinnamon, etc.) to be considered as "bread"? The Anonymous  Andalusian 
has several recipes for flatbreads, and quite a number of  "dough" 
recipes which have flour and oil, with or without  "leavening".

I don't think any are like what we in the modern world  commonly think of 
as bread: baked in a loaf pan, and raised with yeast of  one sort or  
another.