Although a bit drier in style than Salt, I loved this book
and how completely the subject of bread is covered, from field to mill to final
loaf. Jacobs has a large section on
mills, which is full of fascinating details, such as in areas of soft stone
quarries, people often had damaged teeth, as the mill plates would actually grind themselves down and
deposit stone in the flour. The author also has
a section on why the miller of the Middle Ages was a universally-despised man, on par with
modern day tax collections or representatives of congress. This was because the miller was often under
crippling debt to the local lord or magistrate, so the miller would often adulterate
flour to increase their meager income. This
lead to infamy as the German proverb, “besides every mill stands a hill of
sand,” and the famous comical scene of the miller and his wife in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales.
There’s also a great deal of focus on bread’s role in religion,
from the Egyptians to the Greeks, up through Western Europe and the Eucharist. One of the most shocking events to me was Jacob's description of Martin Luther turning against the poor German peasants who had
helped build his base of support. Luther urged the peasants to push back against the oppressive upper class, which had also branded Luther a criminal and heretic. The peasants did, many were slain, and some victorious peasants began to fight for property and
claim land as their own. Afraid this land-grabbing and violence by the peasantry would implicate him, Luther appealed to the middle class princes of the aristocracy. This middle class were also oppressed by the ruling class, but certainly considered
themselves above the peasants. So in
response to the peasant revolt spiraling out of control, Luther, son of a
peasant miner himself, wrote “Against the Thievish, Murderous Hordes of
Peasants” aimed at giving instruction to the middle class princes to turn against the peasants:
Such are the present times that a prince can more easily
attain the kingdom of heaven by bloodshed than others by prayer. Stab, murder, strangle, whoever can! If you perish in doing so, so much the
better, for you can never die a more blessed death, for you die in obeying the
divine Word and command and in the service of love to save your neighbor from
hell and the bonds of the devil.
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| A pumpernickel loaf from a brotform mold |
Later called The German Peasants war, 130,000 peasants died
in this struggle from 1524-1525 AD, making it the largest civil uprising until
the French Revolution in 1789. Before
this book, I had never heard of it. Six
Thousands Years of Bread shows just how crucial bread, the staff of life, is
held, and the sometimes horrible things that happen when people cannot feed
themselves.
The last part of the book focuses on mankind’s problematic
relationship with the land, robbing it of nutrients and failing to manage the
soil with any kind of long-term forethought.
So people starve, unrest ensure, etc.
A reoccurring theme of Six Thousands Years of Bread is that a lack of
food is often the tipping point for war and civil unrest.
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| A elliptical whole-grain loaf |
Six Thousands Years of Bread is full of such fascinating
details, along with recording mankind’s long term struggle against hunger. It’s not just a book about bread, but about
the culture of humanity, told through bread.
The author’s thesis seemed to be beautifully summed up about halfway
through the book:
“For thousands of years only political history was
considered majestic enough to be remembered.
For the past hundred and fifty years it has been recognized that the
history of commerce is also important.
But to this day few know that the history of mankind is also an agrarian
history.”
-H.E. Jacobs, 1944
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