A History of Bread

Consumers, Bakers and Public Authorities since the 18th Century

Peter Scholliers (Autor)

Buch | Softcover

296 Seiten

2024
Bloomsbury Academic (Verlag)
978-1-350-36176-8 (ISBN)

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For a long time, everything revolved around bread. Providing more than half of people’s daily calories, bread was the life-source of Europe for centuries. In the middle of 19th century, a third of household expenditure was spent on bread. Why, then, does it only account for 0.8% of expenditure and just 12% of daily calories today?

In this book, Peter Scholliers delves into the history of bread to map out its defining moments and people. From the price revolution of the 1890s that led to affordable and pure white bread, to the taste revolution of the 1990s that ushered in healthy brown bread, he studies consumers, bakers and governments to explain how and why this food that once powered an entire continent has fallen by the wayside, and what this means for the modern age.

From prices and consumption to legislation and technology, Scholliers shows how the history of bread has been shaped by subtle cultural shifts as well as top-down decisions from ruling bodies. From the small home baker to booming factories, he follows changes in agriculture, transport, production and policy since the 19th century to explain why bread, once the centre of everything, is not so today.

Peter Scholliers is Emeritus Professor of the History at Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium. An expert in the economic, social and cultural history of food in Europe since the 1750s, he is the co-editor in chief of Food & History and co-series editor of Bloomsbury’s Food in Modern History series. He has edited and authored many publications in the field including A Cultural History of Food, Writing Food History and Food Culture in Belgium.

Introduction
Part I: The Consumer
1. Eating Bread
2. Types of Bread
3. Prices and Purchasing power
4. Acquiring Bread: Baking, Buying and Stealing
5. Calories, Kilos and Grams
6. Bad bread: Fraud, Additives and Riots
Part II: The Baker
7. Artisanal Baking
8. Technology and Hygiene
9. The Factories
10. Wages, Costs and Profits
11. Image, Status and Wealth
12. Politics, Strikes and Consultations
Part III: The Government
13. Grain Policy
14. Price Control
15. Fraud on the Track
16. School and Education
17. Committees, Councils, Institutes and Agencies
Conclusion: Good Bread
Glossary
Bibliography
Appendices
Index

Erscheinungsdatum	27.01.2024
Reihe/Serie	Food in Modern History: Traditions and Innovations
Verlagsort	London
Sprache	englisch
Maße	156 x 234 mm
Themenwelt	Geisteswissenschaften ► Geschichte ► Regional- / Ländergeschichte
	Geschichte ► Teilgebiete der Geschichte ► Kulturgeschichte
	Geschichte ► Teilgebiete der Geschichte ► Wirtschaftsgeschichte
	Sozialwissenschaften
ISBN-10	1-350-36176-3 / 1350361763
ISBN-13	978-1-350-36176-8 / 9781350361768
Zustand	Neuware