William Rubel: A Tale of Two Swiss Neolithic Breads Circa 3200 BCE

Two Neolithic breads were excavated in a gated community along with their apparent social context. Nuances must have been different, but the physical layout is one we are familiar with: big houses with finer things are accessed through a gate separating them from the smaller houses with less fine things. One of the breads found is a crude barley bread. The other, a refined wheat bread that included aromatic seeds imported from Italy. The barley bread seems to map to the village’s small houses, the wheat bread with celery seeds to the affluent inhabitants. William discusses the origin of the global preference for wheat over barley and rye, and the global association of bread styles with social class. Historically accurate recipes are provided.

William Rubel is an independent scholar from Santa Cruz, California, specializing in the history of bread, traditional foodways, and Early Modern kitchen gardening. Author of Bread: A Global History (2011) and The Magic of Fire: Hearth Cooking (2002), his work appears in Gastronomica, Economic Botany, and Mother Earth News. France's Ministry of Agriculture recognized his contributions to traditional foodways by naming him Chevalier de l'Ordre du Mérite Agricole.