5. 1. Laws, politics and economics
Having been instituted in the 13th century and amended at various points in the following centuries, the assize of bread regulated the types of bread that could be sold by bakers as well as the prices which could be charged for them. It was based on bakers being paid a fixed fee to cover their operating costs and living expenses, which was added to the current price of raw materials (Petersen 1995, 99). The main text of the statute having remained unchanged for almost 500 years, much of its language had become so obscure as to be almost indecipherable by the early 18th century, and in various regions its meaning was either being guessed at, or the assize had been completely abandoned (Petersen 1995, 99). A new and comprehensive Bread Act was passed in 1709, specifying in simple and updated language the different permissible types of bread to be sold as well as allowing local magistrates to set the assize either by weight or by size, i. e. allowing for the selling of loaves of fixed weight (e. g. quarter peck/ quartern loaf) at varying prices according to the market price of ingredients or else for the selling of loaves of varying weight at fixed prices (e. g. penny loaf) (Petersen 1995, 99-100). From 1815 to 1836, however, the assize of bread was gradually abolished, first in London and subsequently in the rest of the country (Petersen 1995, 115). While this led to an increase in the number of bakeries, they remained small businesses, and widespread undercutting lowered the standard of bread being produced. It was only following the Sale of Food and Drugs Act of 1875 that the number of small, often cramped and unsanitary cellar bakeries dropped and there was an upswing in the number of larger enterprises which had the necessary capital to invest in powered machinery (Trinder 1993, 125).
5. 2. Home baking
5. 2. 1. Girdles and bakestones
Fig. 5.2.1.1. Welsh bakestone
(‘Kitchenalia collection’ 2008b)
Baking bread on some type of flat surface over a fire was a well-established method by the 16th century. Girdles for baking flat breads were known in Scotland from at least the 14th century, being commonly used for oatcakes and bere bannocks (Fenton 1976; 2007), and circular iron plates for baking had been introduced into Wales in the Middle Ages (Tibbot 2002, 81) (fig. 5.2.1.1.). In England it was apparently a common enough method to be condemned by the physician Andrewe Boord as “not laudable” (Boord 1576). With regard to Wales various forms of evidence, including 17th and 18th century inventories and oral evidence collected in the 20th century, show that portable bakestones of varying materials and designs were in regular use across the social strata into the 19th and 20th centuries (Tibbot 2002, 81-82).
5. 2. 2. Ovens
found in Tudor part of Welsh farmhouse
(David 1977, 263)
There is evidence for built-in wall ovens in domestic buildings from the early 17th century. Some preserved specimens exist of Devon gravel-tempered clay ovens of this period; built into the side walls of open hearths, they were the typical bread ovens of West Country cottages as well as being exported to Wales, Ireland and as far as America, and continued to be made in Barnstaple potteries until 1890 (David 1977; Tibbot 2002) (fig. 5.2.2.1.).
Looking at Wales, we can see a development of ovens and baking technologies characterised by strong regional differences and the very gradual spread of new inventions. While wall ovens, made of clay, as described, stone or fire-brick and fired with wood or peat, became common in southeast Wales from the beginning of the 17th century, they spread very slowly through the rest of the country, not being used in most large farmhouses until the late 19th century and never in some parts of the Northeast (Tibbot 2002, 94-96). Early examples of stone or brick ovens were either built into the large fireplace itself or to one side of it (Tibbot 2002, 95). ‘Outside kitchens’ or ‘outhouses’ present another case of slow diffusion; recorded as extant in southeast Wales in the 17th century, these separate buildings which typically contained a copper for boiling water as well as a baking oven and were used for baking, washing and preparing animal food did not become widespread until the 19th century (Tibbot 2002, 95). In many parts of Wales the pot-oven was the only available type of oven until the latter part of the century (Tibbot 2002, 91). The open range, too, while developed in the mid-18th century, took 100-150 years or longer to come into widespread use (Tibbot 2002, 115). In urban areas of Wales communal brick ovens were constructed in the 19th and 20th centuries to serve a number of private dwellings and can be regarded as precursors of larger custom-built bakehouses such as Derwen Bakery, established in Aberystwyth in 1900 and now part of the Museum of Welsh Life (Tibbot 2002, 101-102) (fig. 5.2.2.2.).
Museum of Welsh Life
(Smith 2005)
Interestingly it appears that, unlike in England, Wales or other parts of Europe, built-in ovens never plaid a significant role in Scotland, except in castles and other noble households where wheat bread was baked and consumed regularly (Fenton 1976, 199; 2007, 81). This raises a chicken-and-egg-type question, namely did the majority of the population consume no wheat bread because they did not have ovens to bake it in, or did they not have ovens because they did not eat raised wheat bread and thus did not need them? The existence of pot-ovens in Scotland (Fenton 1976, 199) would suggest that raised breads could be baked if desired, but evidence suggests that there was a general preference for flat-type breads such as bannocks and oatcakes. More research may help to shed light on this point.
By the early 20th century gas and electric cookers were rapidly replacing coal ranges in urban areas (David 1977, 163). In Wales built-in cast iron wall ovens gradually superseded pot-ovens, although initially there was some reluctance to give up the pot-oven, which was considered by many to produce better bread (Tibbot 2002, 91-93). Built-in wall ovens continued to be used in rural Wales until the spread of electricity in the 1950s (Tibbot 2002, 100). However, even then the cost of the new power source meant that priority was often given to electric lighting (Tibbot 2002, 116-117), and some preferred cooking and baking over an open fire or on a range for other reasons (Tibbot 2002, 120).The development of smaller and cheaper electric cookers such as the Jackson or Baby Belling models (fig. 5.2.2.3.) contributed to a significant degree to the eventually widespread switch to electric cooking and baking in rural Wales in the second half of the 20th century (Tibbot 2002, 125).
The invention of the fan oven, introduced by Belling in 1971, represents an adaptation of an efficient system of hot-air circulation to domestic baking, largely eliminating the need to move loaves of bread around the oven for even baking (David 1977, 166) (fig. 5.2.2.4.).
5. 2. 3. The decline of home baking
by the author in a
modern electric fan oven
(photograph by David Byrne)
table-top cooker
(‘Electric cooking gadgets –
1951 Belling Baby model 51
table-top cooker’ nd.[p])
The decline of home baking in the 19th century can be attributed to various factors, most of which were related to the ongoing industrialisation and urbanisation of British society (Burnett 1966, 3). Many of the growing number of urban dwellers found themselves in tenements without ovens, and those lucky enough to live in artisans’ houses equipped with metal ranges found their so-called ‘bread ovens’ unsatisfactory for their needs, being too small to bake an adequate supply of bread for a large family as well as having a tendency to produce dry or burnt loaves (Petersen 1995; Tibbot 2002). Furthermore commercially baked bread was cheaper unless one had access to free or virtually free flour or grain, cheap fuel and clean water (Petersen 1995, 45); it was also more convenient to buy bread from a baker and thus eliminate the hard work and mess (which tended to attract pests) that home baking entailed (Petersen 1995, 48).
It was for reasons such as these that the 19th century witnessed a steady disappearance of both suitable ovens and skilled home bakers (Petersen 1995, 49). Domestic bread baking persisted longer in the Midlands and North of England due to the easier availability of fuel (Burnett 1966, 3), and in some areas a type of compromise was popular wherein bread dough was prepared at home and then taken to the bakery to be baked for a small fee (Trinder 1993; Petersen 1995). In rural Wales home baking remained the norm well into the 20th century and bakery bread unpopular, being commonly referred to as bara starfo (bread for starving) (Tibbot 2002, 99-100). It was only when bakers’ vans began delivering fresh bread to village shops and isolated farms after World War 2 that domestic bread-making decline here, too, and many of the old wall-ovens were abandoned or closed off (Tibbot 2002, 110).
In the late 20th and early 21st century home baking of bread and other articles has undergone something of a revival in Britain, inspired to no small degree by TV celebrity chefs such as Delia Smith and Nigella Lawson (Wallop 2007). This can be witnessed in the popularity of baking courses as well as in the greatly increased sales of baking products and bread machines (O’ Brien 2002; Wallop 2007). However, a look around any supermarket would suggest that commercially-produced sliced bread, so far, is still king.
5. 3. Yeast and other leavens
Traditional bread fermentation techniques varied significantly between different parts of Britain (Samuel 2002, 171). The 16th century English physician Andrewe Boord regarded leaven of any kind with a degree of suspicion, calling it ‘heavy and ponderous’ (Boord 1576). Ale yeast or ale barm was commonly used for bread-making in 16th and 17th century England, though the above-described ‘brown bread’ for servants was made with a sourdough leaven (Markham 1615; David 1977). Yeast became a subject of scientific investigation in the 17th century, though specialised baking yeast did not become available until the mid-19th century (David 1977, 91-93), and brewers’ or distillers’ yeast was used almost exclusively until the late 1800s (McLaren and Evans 2002, 171). In the countryside, where yeast of any kind was often hard to procure, unleavened or soda breads were commonly baked (Petersen 1995, 45).
the 21st century way,
on an overheating laptop
(photograph by David Byrne)
While self-raising flours and bread mixes containing dried yeast came onto the market in the 1870s (David 1977, 75), early 20th century rural Welsh home bakers generally used their own homemade liquid yeast, and their urban counterparts purchased liquid brewers’ yeast from inns (Tibbot 2002, 87). Some English bakers continued making bread with ale barm into the 1920s, citing its superior taste as the main reason (David 1977, 101).
Nowadays bakers’ yeast is made in specialised factories (David 1977, 93), and dried (including instant) yeast is commonly used by home bakers (fig. 5.3.1.), partly because fresh compressed yeast appears to be very difficult to obtain in Britain, with only very few bakers grudgingly ‘obliging’ customers by selling some of theirs, in contrast with other European countries such as Denmark (David 1977, 115) or Germany, where fresh yeast can be found in the chilled cabinets of almost every food shop. The situation in Ireland, incidentally, seems to be comparable to that in Britain; this author, when trying to purchase some fresh yeast from various supermarket bakeries in the 1990s and 2000s, was left with the distinct impression that it would have been an easier and less furtive undertaking to obtain a quantity of class A drugs. Modern bread mixes as sold in shops are mostly of the Irish soda bread type, containing chemical raising agents (David 1977, 74).
5. 4. Commercial baking
Historically, commercial baking in Britain has tended to be on a smaller scale than in other European countries, particularly with regard to the range of breads, rolls and other products (McLaren and Evans 2002, 172). It has been argued that English consumers’ demand for warm bread as well as for the cooking service provided by neighbourhood bakers was the principal obstacle to the establishment of factory-scale bakeries before the late 19th century (Trinder 1993; Petersen 1995). Furthermore home-baking was very popular in certain areas, such as northern England, as evidenced in the fact that in 1804 Manchester, with a population of nearly 100,000, did not have a single commercial bakery (Sheppard and Newton 1957, 31). The situation was somewhat different in Scotland, where bakers used a different process better suited to factory-scale production, and consumers preferred cold bread. As a result, bread was being mass-produced in Glasgow before the end of the Napoleonic Wars (Petersen 1995, 76).
From around 1800 the design of commercial ovens was improved by the introduction of a separate coal-burning chamber from which hot air was carried around the back of the main baking oven by means of a flue, with wood faggots being used simultaneously inside the main oven for immediate heat. Special quick- and hot-burning coals, known colloquially as ‘bakers’ nuts’, were sold for use in these ovens. (Petersen 1995, 46).
By the early 19th century bakeries made three classes of bread: white, which contained no bran, wheaten, which contained only the finer bran, and household, which was wholegrain (Trinder 1993, 125). Bakers in London and other large cities were regularly accused of adulterating their bread with such substances as bone-meal, chalk, lime, white lead and alum. Of these only alum, which was used to whiten bread and which is nowadays considered to be harmless for human consumption and used as a preservative and in some baking powders, was confirmed by chemical analysis at the time (Sheppard and Newton 1957, 73). The above-mentioned Sale of Food and Drugs Act of 1875 outlawed these and other adulterations (Burnett 1966, 207).
the effects of Aerated Bread
(Punch 1860)
The mechanisation and industrialisation of the baking trade accelerated during the second half of the 19th century. The steam tube oven, patented in 1851, worked on the principle of a series of sealed tubes containing distilled water and whose ends were heated in a furnace, resulting in steam inside the tubes making their walls extremely hot. This type of oven became increasingly popular in England in the early part of the 20th century (Sheppard and Newton 1957, 112).
In 1860 Dr. John Dauglish invented Aerated Bread, made by a totally mechanised process using carbonic acid gas instead of yeast to leaven the bread. While this reduced production time and increased output, the resulting lack of taste proved unpopular with the masses, though it found favour with some members of the middle class, who liked the hygienic production process as well as the bland flavour, believed to be beneficial for weak digestions (Petersen 1995, 77). Aerated Bread did in fact continue to be made until the 1980s (Aerated Bread Company (ABC) nd.[a])(fig. 5.4.1.).
The International Exhibition of Flour Mill Machinery in London in 1881 gave further impetus to the development of factory-scale bakeries through the exhibition of such devices as mechanical mixers and dough-kneaders as well as the already mentioned steam tube ovens (Trinder 1993, 125-126). Gas ovens began to appear in bakeries from the 1880s (Sheppard and Newton 1957, 113), and by the end of the century most larger bakeries were using flour-sifters and draw-plate ovens as well as temperature-controlled ovens fuelled by gas or oil (Burnett 1995, 69). Legislation to improve working and sanitary conditions in bakeries contributed further to bringing the British baking industry closer to the factory system by the end of the 19th century (Burnett 1966, 106). By 1900 a few so-called plant bakeries, such as the famous J. Lyons & Co., were making bread in London and selling it both through grocers’ shops and through their own chains of retail bread shops and tea shops (Burnett 1995, 69).
In Wales on the other hand commercial bakeries did not become common in villages until the early part of the 20th century (Tibbot 2002, 101), and many bakers in both rural and urban areas continued to use the old brick ovens well into the first half of the century (Tibbot 2002, 110).
Factory baking experienced a particularly rapid expansion in the 1945-1955 period when bread prices were still controlled and thus only large-scale operations could make a profit (Sheppard and Newton 1957; Burnett 1995). During the 1950s the big three new bakery companies - J. Rank Ltd., Spillers Ltd. and the Canadian-based Allied Bakeries - ensured a large share of the market by selling their products through grocery shops and dairies across the country, making it unnecessary for housewives to go to the bakery to get bread (David 1977, 37). The British baking industry continued to consolidate rapidly following the abolition of bread price control in 1956 (Burnett 1995, 75).
In a development that echoed the invention of Aerated Bread a century previously, the Chorleywood Bread Process, while using yeast (in fact large quantities of it), once again speeded up the baking process in the 1960s by replacing the maturing of the dough with a few minutes of intense mechanical mixing in high-speed machines (David 1977, 37). Today ca. 80% of bread sold in Britain is made by this process (Lawrence 2004; Morris 2010). Since the late 20th century many supermarkets have installed ‘live’ bakeries to lure customers with ‘crusty’ bread hot from the oven – which is, however, frequently delivered to the store par-baked and frozen and only heated up on site, and whose taste and texture are generally much the same as those of the pre-sliced wrapped variety sold for considerably less (David 1977; Lawrence 2004). Most in-store bakeries which do not use pre-baked bread make theirs from ‘premixes’ measured out in a factory, thus avoiding the need to employ specially-skilled staff (Lawrence 2004, 105). Even most of the independent bakers in Britain use the same ‘premixes’, complete with additives, to make their bread (Lawrence 2004, 105). Others are surviving by offering specialty breads at premium prices (Burnett 1995, 75).
Additives have been used in factory bread since the 1920s (Lawrence 2004, 106). Soya flour whitens bread, as alum did in the 19th century, and chemical oxidants, emulsifiers and hydrogenated fats are required to make the Chorleywood Bread Process successful (Lawrence 2004, 107-108). Some of the more dangerous additives used in the past, such as chlorine compounds and potassium bromide, are now banned by law, but the major baking concerns are continually looking for new ones in their endeavour to create bread which can be quickly and cheaply produced and which keeps fresh for longer (Lawrence 2004, 108-109; 113). Current law also requires some of the nutrients which are lost through roller milling to be put back into white flour by millers; calcium is restored at almost four times the original level, but only some of the iron, vitamin B1 and vitamin B3 naturally present in wholemeal is added back (Lawrence 2004, 117)
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