Jeremy Cherfas

Our Daily Bread 20 - Back to Basics http://ow.ly/Dbld30lsqGz Flour, water, salt and yeast; the basic ingredients of a loaf of bread. What happens when you mix them up and then heat them is a complex casade of chemistry, biology and physics. Most of the more subtle changes take time and can't really be rushed. That's why slow bread is better than fast bread in so many ways.

Our Daily Bread 19 - The Bread that Ate the World http://ow.ly/kvrk30lsqEj Small bakers couldn't compete with the giants created by Allied Bakeries, so they turned to science. That produced the Chorleywood bread process, which gave them a quicker, cheaper loaf. Unfortunately, the giant bakeries gobbled up the new method too. More and more small bakeries went out of business as a loaf of bread became cheaper and cheaper. Was it worth it? You tell me.

Our Daily Bread 18 - Allied forever http://ow.ly/2vIi30lqICw Size brings benefits to bakeries as much as to flour mills. The episode tells a small part of the story of how George Weston turned a bakery route in Toronto into one of the biggest food companies in the world, responsible for more brands of bread than you can imagine. And not just the bread, but many of the ingredients that make megabakeries possible.

Our Daily Bread 17 - Rollin' rollin' rollin' http://ow.ly/iVOi30lqItG Stone mills served us well in the business of turning grain into flour for thousands of years, but they couldn't keep up with either population growth or new and better wheat. The roller mill came about through a succession of small inventions and deep pockets of a few visionary entrepreneurs. They turned Minneapolis into the flour capital of the world.

Our Daily Bread 16 - Water and Power http://ow.ly/dcKc30loDEM The rotary quern was perhaps the first labour-saving device. Using water power, rather than muscles, to turn the millstone made it even more efficient. Without watermills, it is doubtful whether ancient Romans could have enjoyed their bread and circuses. Because they require capital investment and skilled workers, watermills also set the trend for concentration in the food industry.

Our Daily Bread 15 - Risen http://ow.ly/VVRP30loDzy August 15th is Ferragosto, a big-time holiday in Italy that harks back to the Emperor Augustus and represents a well-earned rest after the harvest. It is also the Feast Day of the Assumption, the day on which, Catholics believe, the Virgin Mary was taken, body and soul, into heaven. Is there a connection between them? And what does it have do with wheat? Apologies to listeners in the southern hemisphere; this may not reflect your experience.

Our Daily Bread 14 - The Daily Grind http://ow.ly/5IbY30ln1TY It has been a long time since anyone who wanted to eat bread had to first grind their wheat. Grinding, however, was absolutely fundamental to agricultural societies, and still is for some. Archaeologists can see how the work left its mark on the skeletons of the women who ground the corn in the valley of the Euphrates. Then, about 2500 years ago, in the area now called Catalonia, an unknown genius invented the first labour-saving device.

Our Daily Bread 13 - Bread from the Dead http://ow.ly/gqAn30ln1Rg It's a good thing the Egyptians believed strongly in an afterlife and wanted to make sure their dead had an ample supply of bread. The bread and the tomb inscriptions tell us something about how grain was grown and bread baked. To really understand the process, however, you need to be a practical-minded archaeologist like Delwen Samuel, who first set out to replicate Egyptian bread.

Our Daily Bread 12 - The inside story http://ow.ly/sT1F30lmWqK That kernel of wheat isn't actually a seed or a berry, at least not to a botanist. I have no intention of getting into the whole pointless is it a fruit or a vegetable debate, so lets just agree that no matter what you call it, the wheat thing is made up of three major parts: bran, endosperm and germ. In this episode, a little about each of those parts and what they do for wheat.

Our Daily Bread 11 - It's not natural http://ow.ly/dVGu30lkIs3 Wheat has a hugely diverse genetic background, being made up of three different species, and genetic diversity is what allows breeders to find the traits they need to produce wheats that can cope with changing conditions. But because the accidents that created wheat might have happened just the once, plenty of diversity that is missing from modern wheats is still in wheat's ancestors. Trouble is, crossing a wild wheat with a modern wheat is almost impossible. Solution: remake modern wheat.