BREAKING BREAD

From porridge to parchment how bread has shaped our world for better or worse and the part it has to play in our future As the title suggests this book will explore how bread a ubiquitous staple has helped connect communities and shape society as well as how it has been the agent of disease and disorder The principal question to be answered will be Is bread good or bad Starting with the first loaves of bread an imagined euphoria at a novel food that allowed the first of us to eat on the move the book will chart a history strewn with significant periods of our shared culinary history Wheat wars disease starvation hallucinations gluttony chemicals adulteration deconstruction and industrialisation We will journey through and unpick some of bread s triumphs failures and flaws