A History of Bread

For a long time, everything revolved around bread. Providing more than half of people’s daily calories, bread was the life-source of Europe for centuries. In the middle of the 19th century, a third of household expenditure was spent on bread. Why, then, does it only account for 0.8% of expenditure and just 12% of daily calories today?

In A History of Bread, Peter Scholliers delves into the history of bread to map out its defining moments and people. From the price revolution of the 1890s that led to affordable and pure white bread, to the taste revolution of the 1990s that ushered in healthy brown bread, he studies consumers, bakers, and governments to explain how and why this food that once powered an entire continent has fallen by the wayside, and what this means for the modern age.

From prices and consumption to legislation and technology, Scholliers shows how the history of bread has been shaped by subtle cultural shifts as well as top-down decisions from ruling bodies. From the small home baker to booming factories, he follows changes in agriculture, transport, production, and policy since the 19th century to explain why bread, once the centre of everything, is not so today.