sustenance It also represents a truly remarkable discovery, a lively pole on which the young human imagination may well have vaulted forward in insight and inspiration For our prehistoric ancestors it would have been a startling sign of the natural world’s hidden potential for being transformed, and their own ability to shape natural materials to human desires Bread is nothing like the original grain, loose, hard, chalky, and bland! Simply grinding grains, wetting the particles with water, and dropping the paste on a hot surface, creates a flavorful, puffy mass, crisp outside and moist within And raised bread is even more startling Let the paste sit for a couple of days, and it comes alive and grows, inflated from within, and cooks into a bread with a delicately chambered interior that the human hand could never sculpt Plain parched grains and dense gruels provide just as much nourishment, but bread introduced a new dimension of pleasure and wonder to the mainstays of human life So it was bread that became synonymous with food itself in the lands from western Asia through Europe, and took a prominent place in religious and secular rituals (Passover matzoh, Communion bread, wedding cakes) In England, it provided a foundation for naming social relations “Lord” comes from the Anglo-Saxon hlaford, “loaf ward,” the master who supplies food; “lady” from hlaefdige, “loafkneader,” the person whose retinue produces what her husband distributes; “companion” and “company” from the late Latin companio, or “one who shares bread.” The staff of life has also been a mainstay for Western thought Food Words: Dough, Bread Dough comes from an Indo-European root that meant “to form, to build,” and that also gave us the words figure, fiction, and paradise (a walled garden) This derivation ... hlaefdige, “loafkneader,” the person whose retinue produces what her husband distributes; “companion” and “company” from the late Latin companio, or “one who shares bread.” The staff of life has also been a mainstay for... matzoh, Communion bread, wedding cakes) In England, it provided a foundation for naming social relations “Lord” comes from the Anglo-Saxon hlaford, “loaf ward,” the master who supplies food; “lady” from...mainstays of human life So it was bread that became synonymous with food itself in the lands from western Asia through Europe, and took a prominent place in religious and secular rituals (Passover