Baking around the world

Abstract

Why is it that 'bread' means different things in different parts of the world? Place a loaf of white North American pan bread beside a loaf of Central European rye bread, Middle Eastern pita bread or Chinese steam bread and it could justifiably be said that they are all quite different products. Yet they are all bread. Why do bakers in different parts of the world use quite different equipment to make the same, or almost same, product? To be able to answer these questions and hence understand baking in Europe, Africa, North America, Australasia and Asia, it is first necessary to appreciate the historical development of breadmaking; the factors which influence the process of breadmaking; customer expectations. These factors are considered in the following sections. © 2007 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC.