Six Thousand Years of Bread (Jacob 2007) is a lengthy read packed full with history and information about agriculture, grains, religion and the beginning of bread in human history.  Arranged as a set of “books” from prehistory to “bread in our time,” the content jumps around not focusing on any one element of bread as we know it.

On the very first page is a quote by Henry Fabre, “History celebrates the battlefield whereon we meet our death, but scorns to speak of the plowed fields whereby we thrive; it knows the names of kings’ bastards but cannot tell us the origin of wheat. That is the way of human folly.”  We really don’t know precisely where the origin of our food comes from; neither are we taught about food and its history in school.  Learning about the history of something that we are in contact with every day of our lives is essential: bread isn’t going to disappear very soon.

Six Thousand Years of Bread informs us that Dr. Gideon Lincecum claimed that ants were the first reapers and sowers of grain, but it turns out that what he had observed was an accident of ant behavior.  Stone age man was the first sower of grain, again an accidental occurrence; agriculture was discovered when early man threw out seeds that began to germinate because the taste was spoiled. Eight months later to his surprise the grain showed up again.

In mythology, the Greek gods are connected to agriculture and bread making.  When Demeter’s daughter Persephone was snatched into the underworld, Demeter made all fields unfruitful; she wouldn’t let the seed rise; men, animals, and the gods couldn’t live without those essential plants.

But how did grain become converted to bread?  It was the Egyptians who first invented ovens, making the transformation of grain possible. The Egyptians went as far as basing their administrative system around bread.   With parallel importance, the Jews made bread the starting point of their religious and social laws, while the Greeks created profound and solemn legends for the Bread Church of Eleusis.   Bread has a long and vital importance as a symbol of power, story, and growth.

I feel like if this book was written well but I wish it would have been written in a different order. I would have really liked it to keep all the same topics or subjects to be kept together in a chapter I feel like it would have made it a lot easier for me to read and follow along.