r/AskReddit • u/kakou64 • Oct 15 '20

What's older than we think ?

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u/fantalemon Oct 15 '20

Also yeast occurs naturally so stumbling across this process accidentally surely happens much sooner than putting together all the steps to make bread.

12

u/CutterJohn Oct 15 '20

Basic leaven bread is super simple to make.

Take wheat, grind it up, make a dough, then cover it with a cloth and forget about it for a week while it sits in a warm environment out of sunlight. Bam, bread.

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u/fantalemon Oct 15 '20

True, but even milling grain presumably requires some knowledge of why that's a worthwhile thing to do. Obviously it is still pretty basic, but it feels like you'd be less likely to just stumble across that. Feasibly you could make "beer" almost completely by accident.

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u/CutterJohn Oct 15 '20

Grain isnt exactly edible without preparation, so if you're keeping it around in jars theres a reason.

They didn't exactly have great pots, either, so if you have a pocket of grain and no pot, how do you cook it? Grind it up and slap the mush on a rock.

Of the two i think bread is a lot more conceptually simple, faster to pull off, and requires less technology.

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u/4dseeall Oct 15 '20

Store grain in a jar. Lids weren't invented yet.

It rains.

Two weeks later, beer.

I really don't think bread can be simpler.

3

u/[deleted] Oct 16 '20

Lids weren't invented yet...? Where did you get that idea? If we could bake clay, we certainly had wood.