History of bread for children
What was the first bread?
Each product has its own history. Such a universal product as bread exists in almost all countries of the world. Bread has come a long, complex way before it takes the form of beautiful loaves on our table.
15 thousand years ago
Our ancestors, in search of food, came across
cereal plants.
Ancient people simply collected grains and ate them raw. Later, they learned to grind the grains between stones, pour water into the resulting mass, reminiscent of flour, and cook it. So we can say with confidence that the first bread was a nutritious mushy mass of flour and water. People realized that porridge made from roasted grains tasted better and began to make it thicker and bake it. The first unleavened bread cakes were produced - the world history of bread baking begins with them. During these times, the first ovens, dishes, mortars for grinding grains, and mills with millstones were created.
Fluke
Lush bread did not appear immediately; it happened about 5
thousand years ago
.
According to legend, one of the slaves in ancient Egypt
forgot about the dough, and it fermented a little. He couldn’t leave his owners without bread, so he still put the dough in the oven. Everyone was surprised by the appetizing appearance and wonderful taste of the new loaf. It retained freshness longer and was better absorbed by the body. Instead of punishment, the slave was asked to tell what he did to make the bread so soft and rosy. Having broken the bread, the ancient people saw that it was full of small holes inside; this was air that appeared during the fermentation process.
In Russia in the 11th century
Sour rye bread was baked using sourdough from previous baking. The sourdough recipe has been passed down from generation to generation.
Yeast did not exist in its pure form, so instead, fermented grape juice, beer foam, leaven made from flour and wine were mixed into the dough, or the dough was simply left for a long time so that it would rise on its own. In Rome and Greece, bread made from slightly fermented dough
considered food for rich people, it was served as a separate dish. The slaves had to be content with coarse bread; the dough for it was not fermented, but baked immediately. Different variations of bread appeared - with milk, sugar, poppy seeds, honey.
The first bakers and automation
The ability to bake delicious, fluffy bread was highly valued in those days, so bakers were cherished. For the murder of a baker, a man was immediately executed,
after all, it could provoke famine. But if the baker himself made bad bread, he was punished to the fullest extent, because people obtained flour with great difficulty, and it was impossible to transfer it to unsuccessful baking. And recipes for good bread were kept secret. Bakers and their students over time developed certain recipes, norms and rules for baking bread.
By the 19th century
the process of growing wheat, harvesting, milling and baking
was automated.
And of course, now we cannot fully understand how difficult it was for our ancestors to get bread. Now making homemade bread will not be difficult.
Bread as the basis of life
For Russians, bread is more than just a food product; it is part of their cultural heritage
.
There are many traditions where bread plays a big role; remember even the tradition of meeting honored guests with “bread and salt”, a loaf for newlyweds.
Bread is treated with reverence and children are taught this.
It is unlikely that people will ever stop eating bread. Bread production will never lose its relevance.
No matter what form bread appears before us - flatbread, loaf or baguette, it remains the connecting link of all countries of the world. Bread is a symbol of hard work and well-being created with your own hands.
Text of the book “Tell the Children about Bread”
E. Emelyanova Tell children about bread
Pancakes
Pancakes are one of the most ancient and popular flour products. According to A.P. Chekhov: “... they were born before Russian history, they survived it all from the beginning to the last page, which lies beyond any doubt, they were invented just like the samovar, by Russian brains...”
The origin of the word “pancake” is also interesting - it is a distorted word “mlyn” from the verb “to grind.” “Melin”, or “mlin”, means a product made from flour, that is, from flour.
Pancakes are over two thousand years old. Interestingly, they remained virtually unchanged during this period. Tastes and fashion change, but pancakes remain unchanged - tasty, aromatic, beautiful.
Blinis are a Russian national dish, but are found all over the world. Russian pancakes are very different from their counterparts. They are “soft, loose, spongy, lush, light and at the same time seemingly translucent, with a clearly visible pattern of numerous pores. Such pancakes, like a sponge, absorb melted butter and sour cream, which is why they become juicy, glossy and tasty” (Pokhlebkin). They eat pancakes with sauces and fillings. There are sweet pancakes, that is, with sweet fillings, and there are hearty ones, filled with meat, fish, caviar, etc.
Russian people have different beliefs and traditions associated with pancakes. Pancakes are a must-have treat for Maslenitsa, an indispensable delicacy of this holiday. Many proverbs and sayings and refrains remind us of this: “Like during Shrovetide, pancakes flew to the ceiling,” “It’s not Shrovetide without a pancake,” “Ride on a roller coaster, lie in pancakes,” etc.
They kept in their peaceful lives
the Habits of dear old times: They had Russian pancakes at Fat Maslenitsa.
A. S. Pushkin. "Eugene Onegin"
Perhaps pancakes have gained such incredible popularity not only because of their taste and aroma, but because of their appearance, reminiscent of a red sun.
Hey, you round pancake, master of us all!
Your sides are oily, you are like the red sun. Whoever eats you will have no grief!
Baking good pancakes is not easy. It's a whole ritual. There is a saying “The first pancake is lumpy,” which means that the first pancake does not always work out and in order to bake a delicious pancake, you need to work hard.
For some people, pancakes become a serious hobby. They collect old pancake recipes and come up with new ones.
The world's largest pancake was baked in Moscow on March 15, 2002. It was not a traditional round pancake, but a long and narrow one. Its length was 1 km, weight – 300 kg, total area – 150 m2.
Bun
“If you want to eat bread, don’t sit on the stove,” says a French proverb.
For many centuries, people baked unleavened flat bread - flat cakes. It was customary not to cut the flatbreads, but to break them and eat them, soaking them in soup or stew. This was done until people learned to knead dough with yeast, thanks to which the bread became loose and fluffy. Then in France, and then in other countries, rolls made in the shape of a ball became popular. Translated from French, the word boules means round. The buns were baked in special bakeries, and the dough was slightly sweetened. Following the French, the Germans began to bake buns.
Recipes for making buns have long remained a secret of French and German bakers. Russian types of white bread were called: kalach, saika, bend or vitushka, sitniki - and were baked mainly only in Moscow. During the era of Peter I, German bakeries appeared in Russia, and their baked goods were popular.
Viennese masters achieved significant success in the preparation of buns, who improved the baking process: they were the first to let a stream of steam into the oven where the buns were baked. This makes the surface of the bun pleasant to the eye, as if covered with varnish. The taste of such baked goods also improves.
Buns are baked in different countries according to different recipes, but the main thing is that the person who bakes the bun loves his profession, then the baked goods will taste better.
It is no coincidence that the profession of a baker has always been very honorable and respected. For causing harm to a baker, a more severe punishment was given than if the harm had been caused to a member of any other profession.
The famous hero of the Russian folk tale Kolobok was also a bun.
I'm scraping the box,
sweeping the bottom of the barrel, meshon on the sour cream, and spun in the butter...
Kolobok is a special bread known only in Russia. They baked it not on holidays or even on an ordinary weekday, but only when there were no supplies for making buns. Then they scraped the boxes, ground them along the bottoms, i.e., all the remaining flour went into the “bun” dough. The type of flour was not taken into account. Wheat, rye, and buckwheat - any of them mixed together were suitable for kolobok. There is no exact recipe for making a kolobok – there is a lot of room for the baker’s imagination.
Kalach
Don't cry, don't cry - I'll buy a roll,
Don't cry, dear, I'll buy another one. Don't cry, don't scream, I'll give you three! Ay, don’t cry, don’t cry, don’t cry, I’ll buy you a kalach! If you cry, I’ll buy a thin bast shoe!
Kalach is a type of white wheat bread that was especially loved in Rus'. Rolls of bread were both on the everyday table of ordinary townspeople and at feasts of wealthy nobles. As a sign of special favor, the king sent rolls to the patriarch and other persons who had a high spiritual rank.
Kalach has a unique appearance, thanks to which it is easy to distinguish it from other types of white bread. It looks like a lock with a round shackle. Many townspeople bought rolls on the street and ate them there, holding them by the hand. There was no opportunity to wash your hands before eating on the street, so the handle from the roll was not eaten as food, but was given to the poor and fed to stray animals and birds. About those who did not disdain to eat the handles of the roll, they said: they reached the handle.
There is no consensus on how the word “kalach” appeared and what it means. According to one version, it comes from the words “colo”, “wheel”. According to another, from the Tatar “kalach”, that is, literally, “be hungry!”, an expression reflecting a high degree of appetite.
Kalach is a very capricious type of bread. The dough for it cannot be kneaded or baked using mechanisms - then it will not fit and will not rise. The dough also has one more feature: it must be kept in the cold. In Rus', rolls were crumpled right on the ice. To do this, metal boxes were made in the tables and filled with ice. The surface of the table on which the dough was kneaded became cold and icy. Even now, when making rolls, after kneading the dough by hand, they immediately put it in the refrigerator.
Another difference between kalak dough is its ability not to go stale for a long time. In the 19th century The rolls were frozen in Moscow and transported to Paris. There they were laid out on hot towels and then served on the table.
Murom and Moscow bakers achieved great success in the production of rolls, and Saratov rolls were also famous for their excellent taste. The city coat of arms of Murom depicts three rolls. According to legend, Empress Catherine N. passed through Murom. She really liked the rolls she was treated to, and she gave the order to place their image on the city’s coat of arms.
PROVERBS AND SAYINGS
• Kyakhta tea, Moscow kalach - this is how a rich man eats his afternoon tea.
• From the curl up - a white face.
• No hand to the peasant's son - there are rolls.
• You can’t even lure him here with a roll of bread.
Cookie
Here are grandma's cookies.
You couldn't find a better one. Again and again I ask: - Grandma, bake some delicious ones!
The name "cookie" comes from the Dutch word "koekje", meaning small or pie. The fact is that in ancient times, a cookie was a small amount of cake batter that was baked to test its taste and oven temperature.
One of the first countries in which sugar cookies were made was Persia, where they were baked already in the 8th century. n. e. Since then, different types of cookies have appeared in different countries. They are made by hand, at home, or baked in factories.
Cookies in England and Australia are called sponge cakes, in Spain they are called biscuits, in Germany they are called cakes or Christmas cookies, and in Italy there are several names to identify the different shapes, including amaretti cookies and biscotti, etc.
There are many recipes for cookies, different products are used to make them, oatmeal cookies are baked from oatmeal, using almonds - almond, coconut - coconut, ginger - ginger, etc.
Cookies can be rich, sweet, or unleavened, for example, biscuits. They are made only from flour and water and are not even salted. These cookies can remain fresh for a long time.
There are many different traditions and rituals associated with cookies.
The custom of baking large cookies or shortcakes in the form of men, stars and animal figures appeared a long time ago and echoes our Russian tradition of caroling.
Figured cookies in the shape of animals and birds were often made at Christmastime especially for carolers, as well as for distribution to children or the poor. In the villages of the Moscow region, figurines of cows made from dough were served to carolers to ensure well-being in the household. In Russian villages it was also believed that livestock would begin to get sick and disappear if the “handlers” were not given a “cow.”
In Europe, Christmas cookies are not supposed to be eaten until Christmas. Only on one day, December 6, St. Nicholas comes to the children and puts various sweets in their boots, and some of the baked cookies are laid out on a large plate of the family table for the children to enjoy.
Almost every family has its own recipes and customs for making cookies.
Rusk
Surprisingly, everyone’s favorite and familiar cracker has a birthday. True, only a rich cracker has the right to celebrate it. Black rusk appeared long before the butter rusk, and no one knows exactly the date of its birth. People simply, wanting to save bread, cut it into pieces and dried it. Dried bread does not spoil for a long time. And although black crackers did not have a special taste, their value was high.
The butter cracker appeared on November 14, 1958. On this day, GOST 5646-58 was signed - the first mention of the cracker in official sources. Although some believe that butter crackers appeared much earlier - in the middle of the 19th century. In those days, there was very intense heat in the south of Russia, which occurred at the very beginning of Easter week. The Easter cakes that were exposed to the sun turned out to be dried out.
Rusks are bread, cut and baked a second time. The German name zwieback, Italian biscotto, French biscuit and Latin bis coctus [panis] mean the same thing - twice baked bread.
What does this mean? Baked twice and why do they do this - bake twice? The fact is that a cracker is not only a “salvation” for stale bread or a loaf, it is also an independent bakery product. According to GOST, and GOST is a set of strict rules that must not be violated under any circumstances, you must first bake a butter loaf, then cut it into equal pieces and send them back to the oven to get those very rosy, tasty, crispy crackers that all children love.
Thanks to their long shelf life, crackers became an important part of the military diet. There was even a division into ordinary crackers and officer crackers. For officer's crackers, higher quality flour was used.
Currently, both crackers and crackers are produced - small pieces of dried bread, often with various flavorings.
It is important to remember that if the bread is not eaten on time and begins to go stale, then you do not need to throw it away, but you can make tasty, nutritious and healthy crackers yourself. Skilled housewives use crackers not only as a treat for tea, but also for preparing various dishes. In addition to the usual ones, breadcrumbs are also used.
PROVERBS AND SAYINGS
• Your own cracker is better than other people's pies.
• The poor man's last loaf of bread is more valuable than the rich man's loaf.
• For the good, crackers are good for health, but for the evil, meat is not good for future use.
• The cat is sewing a fly in a basket, the cat is pounding crackers on the stove.
• Your own cracker is better than other people's pies.
• The poor man's last loaf of bread is more valuable than the rich man's loaf.
• The good one gets a cracker for his health, but the evil one gets no use for the meat.
Black bread
There are many songs, legends, proverbs and sayings about bread. It is impossible to imagine the life of even a modern person, who can prepare many different dishes for himself, without bread. Bread is the head of everything. How did you manage without bread before?
Ancient man did not have to choose. He ate everything he found. But already in the Stone Age, people noticed that the grains of some plants are very filling. These plants are wild cereals: rye, wheat, barley.
In Rus', bread was the main dish both in everyday life and at the festive table. Dear and respected guests were greeted with bread and salt. The tradition has survived to this day.
Bread is the basis of life, a gift from Mother Earth on the one hand and enormous human labor on the other.
Here it is - fragrant bread.
Here it is - warm, golden. He came to every house, to every table It contains health, our strength, It contains wonderful warmth. How many hands raised him, protected him, took care of him!
Black bread reflects the identity of the Russian people. It was on the territory of Rus' at the beginning of the 9th century. sour rye bread made from yeast dough appeared. To this day he remains the “uncrowned king of the table.” The Russian table is unthinkable without bread.
Nowadays, bread is baked in bakeries, but previously every family baked at home. The housewife woke up before dawn, kneaded the dough and put it in the oven, which had not yet cooled down from the evening. The process was labor-intensive, but after an hour and a half, the “loaf, bursting with heat and grain spirit,” was ready.
A thin stream of nourishing
warm smell snakes around the corners. I breathe in a joyful, original world With love and tears in half. How simple is the understanding of the Universe, When, waking up in the warmth in the morning, Under the kiss of a ray of sunlight, You see homemade bread on the table.
V. Orlov
Even brilliant Paris dimmed without black bread. Pushkin’s friend Sheremetev, upon returning from Paris, wrote: “It’s bad, brother, to live in Paris: there’s nothing to eat, you can’t ask for black bread.”
And today Russia is famous for the variety of varieties and types of national bread.
PROVERBS AND SAYINGS
• A Russian person cannot live long without black bread.
• Without a piece of bread there is sadness everywhere.
• Lunch is bad if there is no bread.
Baranki
Baranki are traditional Russian bread products. They have long been sold at bazaars and fairs in Rus'. Fair visitors took bundles of these delicious, rosy rings home as gifts. Both adults and children loved them.
Valdai was famous for its bagels. A. S. Pushkin talks about this in his “Letter to Sobolevsky”:
“From pliable peasant women
(For which Valdai is famous) Buy some bagels for tea and go quickly.”
The name “bagels” comes from the word “boiled”, because they were made from custard or, as in ancient times in Rus', “boiled” dough, which was rolled into narrow flagella, rolled into a circle, and then baked “boiled”, that is products made from scalded dough.
The name changed - “ovaranochki”, “abaranki”, until finally it turned out - “steering wheels”.
The first written mention of bagels is found in the decree of Peter I of 1725. In Peter’s time, bagels were scalded with boiling water and then baked. From the second half of the 18th century. dough pieces began to be processed with steam - this is still done to this day.
Nowadays, bagels are baked in special factories, which are called bagel factories. Ostankino is more than 50 years old; it was created in 1967 as an experimental enterprise and still produces bagels, dryers and breadsticks.
A steering wheel museum has been created in the city of Tutaev, Yaroslavl region. They were prepared according to a special recipe, which the current bakers managed to restore. Craftsmen create incredible figures and figurines from bagels. The Baranka Museum regularly exhibits about 300 exhibits.
Bagels are not only a delicacy, but also a cure for sore throat. At the first sign of a cold, you should soak the bagel in hot milk, cool and eat it with tea and lemon. Wheat dough with milk resolves pustules and inflammation. Treatment should be continued until the cold symptoms disappear, preferably three times a day.
PUZZLES
Small, buttery,
Edible Wheel. I won’t eat you alone, I’ll share it for all the guys.
(Baranka)
The ring is not simple,
the ring is golden, shiny, crispy, for everyone to enjoy, what a delicious treat!
(Baranka)
Cheesecake
Cheesecakes are round flatbreads, open at the top and pinched only at the edges. Usually they were baked with cottage cheese filling, less often - jam or marmalade.
The name “vatrushka” comes from the word “vatra” - hearth, fire, which sounds the same in most Slavic languages - Ukrainian, Polish, Czech, Serbian, Croatian, Bulgarian and even in some non-Slavic ones: Romanian and Albanian, which indicates the extreme antiquity of this name. Therefore, it is no coincidence that cheesecakes have a round shape and a sun-shaped appearance (ringed circle). They symbolized fire (bordered, protected by the hearth, fire inside the hearth), “tamed”, curbed by man.
Gogol mistakenly wrote “Vtrushka”, believing that the word comes from the verb “to rub, rub in” (and from an inversion of the word “cottage cheese” - rub the cottage cheese into the cheesecake). The writer believed that ordinary people were mistaken when they pronounced this word with an “a”, and tried hard to “correct” the spelling. As linguists have shown, in this case it was the great writer who was wrong. But in new editions, Gogol’s spelling has been preserved.
Cheesecakes are made from a mixture of wheat and rye flour or, most often, from premium quality wheat flour. In the first case, they are usually unsweetened - a small amount of fried onion is added to the cottage cheese. In the second - sweet ones, they are served with tea. The dough of cheesecakes in all cases is light, not stiff, yeasty, rich, sometimes flaky.
Before baking, the cheesecakes were greased with a mixture of yolk and butter. Such products turned out not only lush, but also ruddy and looked very appetizing.
A real cheesecake should be big. Usually cheesecakes were eaten at the festive table, divided among all guests. There was an interesting custom - to bake surprises into cheesecakes - a small button, a piece of chocolate, a coin. It was believed that the one who gets the coin will be rich, the owner of the chocolate will have a happy life, but if he gets a button, he will have to work hard. Those who didn’t get a surprise had to wait for the next cheesecake feast and hope for their lucky stars.
It was customary to bake amazingly delicious cheesecakes for Christmas.
If you don't give me cheesecakes,
you'll get hit on the top of the head!
A two-ton cheesecake with strawberries was baked in 2009 in Mexico. 55 chefs worked on this baking miracle for 60 hours. The giant cheesecake took 1 ton of cheese and yogurt, 350 kg of cookies, 250 kg of sugar and 150 kg of butter. It was included in the Guinness Book of Records as the largest cheesecake in the world.
Loaf
As on Petya's name day,
we baked a loaf. This is the height, this is the lowland, this is the width, this is the dinner. Loaf, loaf, choose whoever you want.
This song-game reminds us of the reviving tradition of celebrating name days and be sure to bake a loaf of bread for this holiday.
The name “loaf” has become widespread in Russian culinary usage, but is often attributed to completely different products. So, a loaf is the name for a large loaf of home-baked bread; round or oblong pies and buns without filling are also called loaves; finally, in some regions of Russia this is the name for thick flatbreads, in others – large-sized cheesecakes or rich semi-sweet buns.
The reason for this is that the word “loaf” is non-Russian, it means cumin, or rather, Indian cumin - azhgon, cumin. All baked goods that used cumin were initially called “loaf”. However, due to the fact that the Russian people tend to evaluate all products primarily by form, and not by content, the word “loaf” was attributed to a round (hemispherical) shape, and all products of this type in the 19th century. It has become fashionable to call them loaves.
The tradition of greeting newlyweds with a loaf of bread has survived to this day. The main participant of the wedding was a large round loaf.
The senior loaf maker was in charge of the baking. She could only be a woman who lives with her husband in love and harmony and has good children: it was believed that harmony in the family of a loaf-maker is passed on to the young through the loaf.
The larger the loaf, the happier and more prosperous the life of the young family will be. And therefore, when they put a loaf in the oven, they said: “My loaf goes into the oven with a quail, out of the oven with a scab!” (That is, more.)
The loaf makers tried to bake not only a tasty and beautiful loaf, but also a big one - to everyone’s surprise. In some places it was customary to bake a table-sized loaf. The loaf-makers sang: “You bake-fight loaf, thicker than a brick stove, taller than an oak post.” Indeed, the loaf was often baked thicker than a brick oven. We had to break out a row or two of bricks from the mouth of the furnace.
If such a big guy was baked at an ordinary rural wedding, then one can imagine the size of the loaves that were baked at princely and royal weddings. Here the loaf was delivered to the wedding table by four loaves on a special stretcher upholstered in scarlet velvet. In the XVI–XVII centuries. At royal weddings there was a ritual of giving a loaf of bread.
