الخبز في التاريخ والأدب

In the Epic of Gilgamesh, which is the oldest written text in history, the character (Enkidu) was closer to beasts than to humans, until he ate bread and transformed into a human.

In the Epic of Gilgamesh, bread represents a central symbol of civilized life, agriculture, and the difference between primitive and civilized humans. Eating it was a sign of (Enkidu)'s civilization and his transition from the wilderness to the city.

The first food that becomes scarce and is missed by people during wars is bread; hence, there is a list of world literature that describes the state of bread scarcity in wars, and the most impactful for me are the German stories where bread is a recurring theme in German literature, especially in literature that depicts the post-war period, where it symbolizes need, despair, and the struggle for survival. In the German city of Ulm, there is even a museum dedicated to bread that showcases its history and cultural and symbolic significance across different civilizations.

In the novel "Bread of the Early Years" by Heinrich Böll, the events take place in a single day when the protagonist meets a girl and remembers his childhood, the death of his mother, and the hunger during the war.

The short story "Bread" by the German author Borscht tells the story of an old woman who pretends to sleep when her elderly husband wakes up and greedily takes the only piece of bread in the fridge while she thinks of the cold that will freeze his bones in the kitchen as he sneaks in without shoes. From here, after many years of marriage, the wife reevaluates their relationship. He had lied to her after thirty-nine years of marriage, saying he went to the kitchen because he heard a noise, and he had hidden crumbs of bread in his mouth.

The ancient Egyptians are credited with inventing the first leavened bread (made with yeast) around 3000 BC. They discovered that mixing flour and water together and leaving it for several days activates the yeasts, resulting in risen dough. In the Roman era, finely ground flour from high-quality wheat was exclusive to the wealthy, while bran flour was used by the common people. In our current era, bread has become ubiquitous, and we cannot count the types of ready-made bread on supermarket shelves.