Bread has been around for thousands of years and plays a major role on menus around the world.
Where would we be without bread? It is one of humanity’s oldest forms of prepared food and most likely started off as a simple flatbread made from extracting starch from plants by pounding them and then spreading the starch on flat rocks that were then cooked over fires. When agriculture started to spread around 10,000 BC at the start of the Neolithic age, the cultivation of grains and the presence of natural wild yeast made bread an important staple. With just two main ingredients, flour and water, endless varieties of bread can be made.
Fast forward thousands of years to the creation of the modern diner and you’ll see bread all over the menu. Original diners were known for simple foods like sandwiches and over time the menus have evolved to center around the classic comfort food like you’ll find at Gunther Toody’s. Bread is a fixture our menu; in our sandwiches, burgers, and of course at breakfast.
So you probably like to eat bread but how much do you know about the subject? Here are some fun facts that you may not know.
- The automatic bread slicing machine was invented by Otto Rohwedder in 1928.
- The outside of the loaf is called the crust and bakers refer to the inside as the crumb.
- Americans consume on average 53 pounds of bread per year.
- Farmers receive approximately 5 cents (or less) from each loaf of bread sold.
- A single bushel of wheat will make 73 loaves (one pound each) of bread.
- The color of the twist-tie on loaves of bread designates which day of the week the bread was made. However, manufacturers use their own color code so no one color applies to every type available.
