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Bread, in one form or another, has been a principal form of food for man from the earliest times.  Loaves and rolls have been found in ancient Egyptian tombs and wheat has been found in pits where human settlements flourished 8,000 years ago, yuck!

  

The ancient Greeks and Romans knew bread for a staple food and even in those days, people argued whether white or brown bread was best. Further back, 7,500 years ago, the Stone Age people made solid cakes from stone-crushed barley and wheat.

     
The island of Cyprus had a reputation for good bread.   An old writer, Ebulus, said: “Tis a hard thing, beholding Cyprian loaves, to ride carelessly by, for like a magnet, they do attract the hungry passengers.”
   
   
       
       

Bread continued to be important through history as the bread riots during the French Revolution attest. The famous quotation attributed to Marie Antoinette that if the poor could not get bread for their table then “let them eat cake,” became a famous illustration of how royalty had become ignorant of the plight of the lower classes. Actually, Marie Antoinette never said this and was merely being slandered by her detractors!

  
                       
Today, even with the competition of a growing variety of foods, bread remains important. It has a prominent place at the local market and even in our language.   The word ‘bread’ is commonly used as a slang term for money.   It connotes importance as when we say that some aspects of our work is our ‘bread and butter’ and In many households bread is still served with every meal.            
     
           
           
     

Still thought of as the ‘staff of life’, for centuries bread has been used in religious ceremonies. Even the Lord’s Prayer requests of God to “give us this day our daily bread” and bread has a long history for a reason. It is a healthy and nutritious food that fills the stomach as well as the soul.