The First Bakers

[Angela]

Archaeology News considers this one of the most important discoveries of 2018.

https://www.archaeology.org/issues/323-1901/features/7197-jordan-shubayqa-natufian-pita

"About 14,400 years ago in the Black Desert of northeastern Jordan, someone was tinkering with the recipe for the perfect pita. This auspicious moment in culinary history has been captured by researchers who sampled the contents of two stone fireplaces at the site of Shubayqa 1. The team, led by University of Copenhagen archaeobotanist Amaia Arranz-Otaegui, found that the people living at this small campsite, hunter-gatherers who belonged to a culture known as the Natufians, were making unleavened bread-like products at least 4,000 years before the dawn of agriculture. Charred remains from the ovens suggest Natufians gathered wild cereals and tubers to make flour for the bread, which, at the time, was probably not a staple food, but a rare treat reserved for special occasions. “We were very surprised to find bread made before the origins of agriculture,” says Arranz-Otaegui. “Archaeologists have tended to ignore food remains that we don’t recognize, and I’m sure the remains of bread-like products even more ancient than these are everywhere.”

Meanwhile, a Stanford University team analyzed residues on three Natufian stone mortars unearthed roughly 150 miles west of Shubayqa 1, in Israel’s Raqefet Cave. They detected evidence that Natufians were brewing beer from wild wheat and barley 13,000 years ago, well before those grains were domesticated. The two discoveries suggest that our prehistoric ancestors were bakers and brewers thousands of years before they even contemplated becoming full-time farmers.

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[bicicleur 2]

so were the Jomon people in Japan supposed to make cookies from nuts

https://heritageofjapan.wordpress.c.../jomon-cuisine-what-went-into-the-jomon-pots/

and in the Nile valley Qadan culture people would have made cookies from some kind of tubers after removing the tanins

 

[Angela]

so were the Jomon people in Japan supposed to make cookies from nuts

https://heritageofjapan.wordpress.c.../jomon-cuisine-what-went-into-the-jomon-pots/

and in the Nile valley Qadan culture people would have made cookies from some kind of tubers after removing the tanins

Sorry, I'm not following you.

I suppose they could have. The question is did they?

 

[LeBrok]

I've suspected they excelled in baking before they became fully fledged farmers, but they've surprised me with inventing alcoholic drinks so early on.
Nice stone floor, by the way.

 

[bicicleur 2]

Sorry, I'm not following you.

I suppose they could have. The question is did they?

they made flour, we don't know if they baked

I mean, it is not so surprising that Natufians baked prior to actual domestication of seeds

 

[Angela]

they made flour, we don't know if they baked
I mean, it is not so surprising that Natufians baked prior to actual domestication of seeds

Well, since the remains were charred and found in an oven, I think that's a reasonable assumption.

As to the brewing of alcohol, I'm reminded of the departed member who was vehement that alcoholic drinks were invented by Yamnaya. Not, of course, given what I've seen, that actual archaeological evidence would have convinced him that they were far older.

 

[bicicleur 2]

it would have been surprising if the Natufians didn't make bread
after all, they were collecting cereals
how else would they consume them?
in a porridge?

bread is the reason the SW Asian farmers didn't need ceramic cooking vessels
as opposed to the Chinese rice farmers, who probably started consuming wild rice short after the invention of ceramic cooking vessels

 

[Angela]

it would have been surprising if the Natufians didn't make bread
after all, they were collecting cereals
how else would they consume them?
in a porridge?

bread is the reason the SW Asian farmers didn't need ceramic cooking vessels
as opposed to the Chinese rice farmers, who probably started consuming wild rice short after the invention of ceramic cooking vessels

They probably just ate the seeds first, I would think. Then someone got the idea to smash them with a rock and make a powder which they could mix with water. I would think kneading the powder with a bit of water and then baking it with a flat stone would have been next.

It all seems very obvious to us now, but these were important, not so obvious steps to them.

In this video they start talking about Natufians at about 1:00 minute in. At about 6:00 minutes they start to show the cooking. For grinding the grain they used big stone mortars too heavy to transport, which they left at seasonal campsites. Hollowed out gourds were used for storing the grain, but I'm sure they could have been used to boil things as well as some of the smaller mortars. Interestingly, unlike the bread made way into the Copper Age in other areas, they produced a very fine powder for their flat bread, so their teeth don't show the abrasion common in the remains elsewhere.

As for rice, rice flour may well have come first there also. It's still an important part of East Asian cooking: rice flour noodles, rice flour pancakes etc. Like wheat flour it could also have thickened stew and soup. However, since rice has no gluten, you can't really make bread out of it.

I can't stand the noodles, personally: way too slimy.

First "solid" food I was given to eat, and which I gave to my babies first, was rice porridge. Somehow, even then, my mother knew it was the "lightest" of the grains to digest. I still like it, so long as there's milk and sugar. Also like Rice Krispies cereal, rice pudding, rice cakes, rice fritters, risotto, you name it. Just not rice noodles.