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The Epic Interactive Encyclopedia 1998
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Epic Interactive Encyclopedia, The - 1998 Edition (1998)(Epic Marketing).iso
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Bread
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1992-09-03
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Food made with ground cereals, usually wheat,
and water, though with many other variants of
the contents. The dough may be unleavened or
raised (usually with yeast) and then baked.
Bread has been a staple of human diet in many
civilizations as long as agriculture has been
practised, and some hunter-gatherer peoples
made it from crushed acorns or beech nuts.
Potatoes, banana and cassava bread are among
some local varieties, but most breads are
made from fermented cereals which form
glutens when mixed with water. The earliest
bread was unleavened and was made from a
mixture of flour and water and dried in the
sun on flat stones. The Egyptians first used
ovens and made leavened bread. The yeast
creates gas making the dough rise.
Traditionally bread has been made from whole
grains: wheat, barley, rye and oats ground
into a meal which varied in quality. Modern
manufacturing processes have changed this to
optimise the profit and shorten the
manufacturing time. Fermentation is speeded
up using ascorbic acid and potassium bromide
with fast-acting flour improvers. White bread
was developed by the end of the 19th-century
by roller-milling which removed the wheat
germ to satisfy fashionable consumer demand.