Re-reading The Mons Myth after obtaining a good second hand copy on Amazon, and in its' discussion of the pre-war German Army it mentions that breakfast in the Kaiser's Army consisted of Coffee and Kommisbrot.
This is a type a rye bread and was specifically made for the German military.

Kommissbrot

Mentioned above is sourdough rye bread, some kind of these was and is common in Denmark, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rugbr%C3%B8d 

Originally mostly made for the poorest levels of society now special varieties are made in almost all bakeries.

Neilsen,
fixed the link:
Rugbrod

another Rye bread, Pumpernickel ( Devil's Fart)

Pumpernickel

Triceratops and Nielsen,

that many times in Germany and two times in Copenhagen, I was in the beginning overwhelmed by the many types of bread in the bakeries. Quite more than overhere. Even in Copenhagen, I think they are a bit linked to Germany, (at least in that!)
https://www.germanpulse.com/2014/03/05/german-bread-latest-piece-german-culture-hoping-receive-unesco-recognition/



https://germanfoods.org/german-food-facts/german-bread-and-cereals-guide/

But after tasting a bit from everything, I still liked the "bloomer" from our local bakery in slices buttered thick with the real stuff from the cow

PR

The Speenhamland System:

"That is to say, when the Gallon Loaf of Second Flour, Weighing 8lb. 11ozs. [3.9 kg] shall cost 1s. then every poor and industrious man shall have for his own support 3s. weekly, either produced by his own or his family's labour, or an allowance from the poor rates, and for the support of his wife and every other of his family, 1s. 6d. When the Gallon Loaf shall cost 1s. 4d., then every poor and industrious man shall have 4s. weekly for his own, and 1s. and 10d. for the support of every other of his family. And so in proportion, as the price of bread rise or falls (that is to say) 3d. to the man, and 1d. to every other of the family, on every 1d. which the loaf rise above 1s.
By order of the Meeting.
W. BUDD, Deputy Clerk of the Peace."

Purchasing power for labourers dropped drastically in the 19th century:

Work and Bread


By any measure the eighteenth-century handloom weaver working his loom at home was a skilled artisan. In 1798 his purchasing power was 28 pounds of bread, again easily enough to support a family, although somewhat less than the carpenter earned in 1450. With the introduction of the power loom under the factory system, his wages fell to a mere one-sixth of their former purchasing power by 1831. To put a more human face on this statistic, imagine a 25-year-old hand loom weaver in 1798 with a family, good home, and income; by the time he was 58 years old, his income was reduced to the subsistence level, and getting worse with each passing year.
Those labourers who "got with the program", left their home shop and entered the factory, especially a skilled weaver such as the man in our example, could improve their lot. By 1833 an experienced weaver working a power loom in a cotton textile mill was earning enough money to buy 30 pounds of bread a day. In some industries such as pottery and metal working, the wages were substantially higher. Yet these high wages for adult factory workers do not tell the whole story. Whenever possible, mill owners employed children preferentially over adults, at a fraction of the adult wage. The increasing automation of the factory invited cheap child labour to tend the machines, pushing down the number of well-paying adult jobs, which were increasingly of a supervisory role. Unemployment (or as the Victorian economists called it, "overpopulation") increased in the adult labourers' ranks, and poverty surged, defining what would eventually come to be called the "condition of England" question.

Trike, I remember learning about the implementation of the Spleenhamland System at school though I don't know its contents.  The people who implemented the system met to decide what it should include at the Pelican Inn.  You may know this piece of verse*:-

"The little inn at Spleenhamland that stands below the hill
Is rightly called the Pelican from its enormous bill".

*I'm going from memory so I may not be 100% correct with the wording.  There is a play on words on "bill" as in the beak of a bird (and pelicans do have big beaks) and "bill" as in a fee note.  I know a lady who comes from Newmarket** (which I believe has now absorbed Spleenhamland) so I should ask her if she knows whether the Pelican Inn is still standing.

In the 1990s I did some temporary work for the William Sutton Housing Trust - William Sutton lived in the 19th century and made provision that his workers should have a loaf of bread each Friday (that was what I was told anyway).  By the 1990s that had become a cake or a slice of cake but I should imagine a loaf of bread would have come in handy for a person on a restricted income in Victorian times.

** EDIT - It seems from MM's entry (for which thanks) that Spleenhamland is in Newbury rather than Newmarket.

Some of the Pelican Inn would seem to still be there as it's a listed building with a blue plaque on the wall of what is now Jackson-Stops & Staff Estate Agent, The Courtyard, 2 London Road, Newbury.

The entry on the Heritage Gateway site says the following (I've taken out the references but they are all on the heritage description):

"One of the most renowned inns in Newbury was the George and Pelican at the junction of Northbrook Street and the London to Bath Road. It is also referred to historically by its separate names, suggesting that it was once two separate inns, but even under joint ownership it seems that there was a functional distinction between different buildings. Although several elements of the inn such as its stables have not survived, there are three Grade II listed buildings on the Broadway and London Road which are described as formerly part of the inn: 2 London Road, 18 The Broadway and 20-22 The Broadway.

The heyday of the George and Pelican was during the coaching era, from c1780 to 1840, when Newbury was generally used as an overnight stopping point for travellers from London. Evening entertainment was also provided in the nearby Pelican theatre. An Irish actor supposedly wrote this punning epigram about the inn:
'The famous inn at Speenhamland
That stands below the hill
May well be called the Pelican
From its enormous bill.'

The Pelican is documented as early as 1646, and is first named on a map in 1768. According to Walter Money writing at the end of the 19th century, this inn was then the part used for stables, with a residence adjoining, ie the eastern side of the complex. The First Edition Ordnance Survey large scale map of Newbury marks a range behind a courtyard as 'Pelican livery stables'; these buildings have since been demolished. Money also mentions the 'old Pelican garden...in the Backway', famous for its fruit and vegetables, and next to a bowling green. This seems likely to have been north of Pelican Lane.

The George proper was where guests were principally lodged, and was rebuilt in c1730, forming No 20-22 The Broadway, or York House as it is also known. Money says that there was an extensive range of buildings in the rear forming a courtyard; his brother James, an architect, lived in the property, and their father John also seems to have been connected to the George. After James Money's death, York House was auctioned in 1918; various alterations had been made to the building including removing the long room in which passengers dined and most meetings were held. Information about the various proprietors of the George and Pelican has also been collected.

The Pelican (and presumably the George) closed down around the middle of the 19th century; it is still marked on Davis' 1849 map but was in decline at this time due to the advent of the railways. A contemporary account of a visit to the inn in c1850 notes the changes of "that once famous hostelrie....the Pelican of the wilderness, as it may literally be called, looked desolate and forlorn, and a portion of it is converted into a chymist's shop".

Various famous names in history are said to have visited the George and Pelican, including Nelson, Samuel Coleridge and King George and Queen Charlotte. Charles Dickens stayed there in 1835, and it has been suggested that he was thinking of it when he wrote an essay 'An Old Stage-Coaching House' in a book called 'The UnCommercial Traveller'. The George and Pelican was the site of various historically important events, including a meeting in 1795 which led to the introduction of the Speenhamland System of poor relief, and a gathering of labourers during the Swing Riots of 1830.

The GIS polygon for the George and Pelican includes the three listed buildings and part of its historic courtyard area, but is approximate. Newbury Town Council erected a 'blue' plaque on the building in 2016 to highlight the significance of the location."

This is the inn painted in the early 1800s by John Osgood a local artist:



This is 'Pelican Inn Yard' around 1905. The main inn (by then closed) occupied the buildings to the right:



... and here's as it is now with a some of the original Georgian buildings still there (I'm guessing this bit is the lower, two-story building, adjacent to the entry to the inn yard further back down the steet in Osgood's painting and immediately to the left of the 1905 photo - the whole inn originally occupied all the north side of the road):

Cura Annonae (care of the grain supply)
Subsidised and later free grain handed out to the poorest of Roman citizens.

wiki:
In the early centuries of the Republic (509-287 BC), the Roman government intervened sporadically to distribute free or subsidized grain to its population. Regular distribution began in 123 BC with a grain law proposed by Gaius Gracchus and approved by the Roman popular assembly. Adult male citizens (over 14 years of age) of Rome were entitled to buy at a below-market price five modii, about 33 kilograms (73 lb), of grain monthly. Approximately 40,000 adult males were eligible for the grain. In 62 and 58 BC the number of Romans eligible for grain was expanded and grain became free to its recipients. The numbers of those receiving free or subsidized grain expanded to an estimated 320,000 before being reduced to 150,000 by Julius Caesar and then set at 200,000 by Augustus Caesar, a number that remained more or less stable until near the end of the Western Roman Empire.

pdf about the grain dole:

Gracchi and Grain Reform



Egypt, North Africa and Sicily were the main sources of grain during the Late Republic and Empire.

wiki:


Grain made into bread was, by far, the most important element in the Roman diet. Several scholars have attempted to compute the total amount of grain need to supply the city of Rome. Rickman estimated that Rome needed 40 million modii (200,000 tonnes) of grain per year to feed its population.  Erdkamp estimated that the amount needed would be at least 150,000 tonnes, calculating that each resident of the city consumed 200 kilograms (440 lb) of grain per year.  The total population of Rome assumed in calculating these estimates was between 750,000 and one million people. David Mattingly and Gregory Aldrete  estimated the amount of imported grain at 237,000 tonnes for 1 million inhabitants; This amount of grain would provide 2,326 calories daily per person not including other foods such as meats, seafood, fruit, legumes, vegetable and dairy.

Triceratops, LiR and MM,

what an interesting messages. I learned a lot of it. And I think it was MM, who explained what the average eating pattern over a week was, many times using rests of the other days.
Indeed the price of bread and the daily supply of bread was very important in a country and was many times the trigger for a revolution first started by the common people and then taken over by the liberals or the socialists.

As for instance the revolution of February 1917, the real one (I call it the Kerensky revolution) started by the bread prize, if I recall it well. They closed the bridges over the Neva, to avoid that especially the women entered the town, but as the water was frozen they could traverse...all from memory...and from the book of Marc Ferro that I studied in the time for the Kerensky revolution...
https://www.amazon.com/Russian-Revolution-February-1917/dp/0137845790
And again if I recall it well the same with the French Revolution? And the Tunisian revolution?
If I once have time, I will start a thread about the rise of Socialism and why...as perhaps, yes the influence of the bread price on revolutions...
Or if someone others take the challenge?

Kind regards from Paul.

The Flour war of 1775;

wiki;
In Ancien Régime France, bread was the main source of food for poor peasants and the king was required to ensure the food supply of his subjects, being affectionately nicknamed le premier boulanger du royaume ("prime baker of the kingdom"). During this period, the role of the royal police involved far more than simply upholding the law. Police held responsibility over many systems in society, even street sweeping, they also exercised a strict control over the food supply. In order to maintain social order, the grain market was subject to harsh rules to ensure the quality of the bread and its availability at all times and for the entire population. Grain merchants were viewed with suspicion, they were called "the most cruel enemies of the people" because they were suspected of mixing flour with other products (such as chalk or crushed bones) or of hoarding grain to raise artificially the price of this vital commodity. The Ancien Régime favoured a "moral economy" where cupidity was moderated by strict regulations. The police controlled the purity of the flour and made sure that no one would hide grain to drive up prices. Food scarcity was common in the 18th century, but the grain police would forbid exports from regions facing bad harvests and would import grain from regions enjoying overproduction. It could also force a merchant to drop the price of his flour (he was later compensated for his loss in times of abundance).


It was the deregulation of grain in September of 1774, which led directly to a crisis the following year as speculators bought up grain and hoarded it, forcing prices to increase.

Flour War

While there were documented efforts to deal with the grain shortage problems, such as increasing shipments from foreign countries, beliefs that the famine was intentionally orchestrated by Louis XVI, through the "Pacte de Famine", emerged. Turgot repressed the riots and restored controls over the grain market. The idea of free trade of grain was discredited and the economic experiment distanced the masses from the government in Versailles. The Flour War can be seen as a prelude to the French Revolution.

Today, the so-called 'Glorious First of June', is the anniversary of the 1794 Battle of Ushant, the first and largest fleet action of the naval conflict between Great Britain and the First French Republic during the French Revolutionary Wars. I'm posting it here because it was an action primarily to prevent a vital French grain convoy from the US getting to France ... and so again it was all about the importance of getting one's daily bread.

By winter of 1793 France was starving, in part because of the social upheavals of the Revolution but also due to a series of poor harvests. Not only that but France was now at war with all her neighbours and so had nowhere to turn for overland imports of fresh provisions. On 16 November 1793 (Brumaire 26, year II) the National Convention, recognising the critical scarcity of grain, ordered that only one type of bread be made: the pain d'égalité (equality bread). "Bakers will only cook a single type of bread. The quality of this bread will be that resulting from a mix of three quarts of wheat and one quart of rye. Bakers will cook loaves of 8 pounds, of 4 pounds and of one pound; they will not be allowed to use other divisions." Subsequent declarations further reduced the proportion of wheat flour, upped the permitted amount of bran, and allowed the inclusion of barley in the mix.

The idea was that, to guarantee sufficient bread for all, everyone should eat the same bread and at a standard price. But rather than choosing a common, but average bread, the Convention opted, not for the lowest common denominator, but for something slightly below it. By several accounts, the result was equality in at least one sense: people of all classes hated it equally. Writing under the name 'Mallet du Pain', one journalist described the situation in early 1794; "In all the kingdom, except Paris, only a single bread is eaten, called equality bread; it is mixed with rye or with barley and bran. It does not have the worth of even good ammunition bread ['pain de munition': a slang term for very bad bread?], but the city dweller and the villager are only too happy to have this kind, and if a farmer or a burgher had the idea of making better bread for his own use, and reserving the equality bread just for his servants, he would be denounced, incarcerated, pillaged and probably have his throat cut."

Furthermore as an immediate solution to the food crisis the National Convention agreed that food produced in France's overseas colonies would be concentrated on board a fleet of merchant ships gathered in Chesapeake Bay, and, augmented with food and goods purchased from the United States, this was then to be escorted to France by the entire French Atlantic fleet.

The British Channel Fleet under Admiral Lord Howe intercepted this convoy about 400 nautical miles (700 km) west of the French island of Ushant on 1 June 1794. Howe's fleet inflicted a severe tactical defeat on the French (who lost seven ships-of-the-line) but the British ships also suffered such damage that they were left in no condition for further combat and so were forced to return home. The remains of the French fleet similarly limped back to port, but crucially the French grain convoy reached France on 12 June, having lost only one ship in the passage during a storm, thereby securing a strategic success. Nevertheless with the French fleet crippled, the British were thereafter free to conduct a campaign of blockade for the remainder of the war, and therefore the hated pain d'égalité, of necessity remained on the menu for some years.

Meles,

You mention 'ammunition bread' as something not particularly popular.

As the name somehow implies a military background, perhaps there's a kind of equality [very bad pun, I know but couldn't resist] with the German Kommissbrot - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kommissbrot ?

I wondered if it was because the bread was generally seen as being as hard as bullets or cannonballs! 

The French term 'pain de munition' doesn't seem to appear in the contemporary (18th century) official dictionaries of the Académie Français', (ie those dictionaries publishesd in 1740, 1762 and 1798). It does however appear in the, rather more vernacular, 'Dictionnaire royal: françois-anglois et anglois-françois', written by Mr M. Boyer, originally "... compofed for the ufe of his late Royal Highness, the Duke of Gloucefter...", and which was published in 1768 (in London). But the entry doesn't state what this 'pain de munition' actually was. The French word 'munition' doesn't just mean ammunition (ie bullets etc) but can mean supplies generally, so I'm guessing 'pain de munition' was originally an 18th century French army term for a rather basic, dense, long-lasting bread, supplied under government contract to the army - in much the same way as 'hard-tack' biscuit was also a military staple.

There again of course the French word 'boule', or 'boulet', just means a spherical ball ... and as such it is a common name for the classic rustic round loaf (un boule de campagne), as well as a cannonball (un boulet de canon), or the more diminutive bullet/musket-ball (une balle).

So it could have originally been simply a result of jokey military slang - equating the round government-issue loaves as ammo for men, with the cast-iron balls as ammo for the cannon - especially when the bread was probably often solid enough to seem more suitable for the latter usage! In this regard bear in mind also that bread loaves, exactly like cannon-shot, were always classified by weight. For example in France during the 1790s, while the only legal sizes of commercial bread loaf were of one-, four- or eight-pounds weight; there was a similar classification for the standard calibres of cannon: the 4-pounder, 8-pounder, 12-pounder and 32-pounder etc, with the 'pounder' bit again referring to the weight in pounds (livres poids) of the cannonball they fired. 

Then of course the etymology of 'pain de munition' could be a subtle, implicit mix of all these meanings.

The eruption of the Laki volcano in Iceland has been suggested as a cause of the French harvest failures of the late 1780s.


Chapati

from wiki:

Chapatis are one of the most common forms of wheat bread which are a staple food in the Indian subcontinent. The carbonized wheat grains discovered at the excavations at Mohenjo-daro are of a similar variety to an endemic species of wheat still to be found in India today. The Indus valley is known to be one of the ancestral lands of cultivated wheat. Chapati is a form of roti or rotta (bread). The words are often used interchangeably.
Chapatis, along with rotis, were introduced to other parts of the world by immigrants from the Indian subcontinent, particularly by Indian merchants who settled in Southeast Asia and the Caribbean islands.

When I was still working full-time and didn't always feel even like popping something in the microwave I would sometimes stop off for "an Indian" takeaway and I did used to like chapatis.  Alas, they are one of the many foodstuffs I have had to give up since I discovered I had coeliac disease.  Maybe there are gluten free versions of the chapati - or I could have a bash at making them myself.  Gluten of course is one of the things which makes breads/cakes bind and some gluten free items can be a bit crumbly (GF crumpets especially) - though I have seen xan xan gum suggested as an addition to gluten free recipes to help ingredients to bind.

The flat bannock of Scotland or Northern England is a bit like a very thick chapati as it is traditionally cooked on a griddle or hearthstone. Proper bannocks are usually made of barley or oatmeal dough, and while barley flour certainly contains gluten, I don't think oatmeal does.

The three main grains I've been told to avoid are wheat, barley and rye, MM.  I was also told to avoid oats for a year because some coeliacs are intolerant of ativin (sp?) a substance found it oats and then make a cautious return to oats and if I was okay continue to use it.  So far I am okay with my porridge!  Corn is okay - and quinoa (which I always thought was pronounced kin-oah until I watched some YouTube videos on gluten free substances).  Buckwheat is okay also as despite its name it doesn't contain gluten. Mind you,  MM, you have the scientific background so you probably already know this.

Edit: 'watched' - I did not in fact wash an videos.

Seems there are gluten free breads available in the supermarket, LiR:


BBC gluten free bread

I probably phrased my previous post wrongly, Trike.  Yes, I do buy gluten free ready made non-gluten bread sometimes - tastes okay.  I won't say which brand but it's actually a store-bought type of crumpet that I found crumbly (though they taste alright).  I've seen commercial gluten free pitta bread but not chapati bread.

Maize is originally an American crop. Bread made from maize is Cornbread very much a staple of the cuisine of the Southern US, with recipes originating from the Creek and Cherokee.

I'm fairly sure that maize flour contains absolutely no gluten. That is why the Pilgrim Fathers and other settlers of the time had such trouble trying to make their familiar yeast-risen European breads with the local maize flour: there's no gluten and so while the dough might 'rise' it is not elastic enough to trap the carbon dioxide gas, and so it generally falls apart into crumbly lumps rather than producing a nice spongey loaf. Cornbread might be a traditional feature of the classic Thanksgiving Dinner, but in 1621, while maize was indeed very likely on the menu (it was a staple of the Wampanoag after all and they provided much of the food) for the first Thanksgiving meal it was almost certainly served as a type of grain porridge, a pollenta-type stodge, or at best as some unleaven, oatcake-type, crumbly flat-breads.

Could be something like "Johnnycake":

wiki again:
Johnnycake

The earliest attestation of the term "johnny cake" is from 1739 (in South Carolina); the spelling "journey cake" is only attested from 1775 on the Gulf Coast, but may be the earlier form.

The word is likely based on the word Jonakin, recorded in New England in 1765, itself derived from the word jannock, recorded in Northern England in the sixteenth century. According to Edward Ellis Morris, the term was the name given "... by the [American] negroes to a cake made of Indian corn (maize)."

Another suggested derivation is that it comes from Shawnee cake, although some writers disagree.
Indigenous peoples of the Americas were using ground corn for cooking long before European explorers arrived in the New World. The johnnycake originates with the native inhabitants of Northern America; the Algonquians of the Atlantic seaboard are credited with teaching Europeans how to make the food. It is also claimed that johnnycakes were made by the Narragansett People as far back as the 1600s.

Model of the first steam powered grain elevator built by Joseph Dart and Robert Dunbar at Buffalo, NY, in 1842.



The Erie Canal had lowered transport costs of grain from Great Lakes States from $90 to $125 per ton to just $4 per ton. Grain shipments arriving at Buffalo had increased from 125,000 bushels to over 2,000,000 bushels, all of which had to be unloaded from the canal barges by hand.
The new elevator solved this problem, making Buffalo and, for onward shipment of trans-Atlantic grain, New York, the most important grain ports on the planet.

We explored this topic well some time back. Since then it is surprising how the bread racks in local stores have changed. Sourdough in several forms is dominant as are several Italian breads - panini and others I cannot spell in rolls and loaves and also there are wraps of many kinds. I assume a wrap is a type of bread. The good 'ol crusty white is on the way out around here.

Sorry wrong thread! Deleted and transferred. Thought this was the ID and stuff thread.

Bread is very interesting. Back later - I want to know who first thought of putting yeast in it (bread, that is). Such an odd thing to do - must have happened by accident as these things do.

This is confusing - I thought this was a new thread, started by Priscilla, but it is an old thread. Sorry, not paying attention. I suppose the yeast question has been answered ages ago. Will read whole thread later.

Meles meles wrote:

The flat bannock of Scotland or Northern England is a bit like a very thick chapati as it is traditionally cooked on a griddle or hearthstone. Proper bannocks are usually made of barley or oatmeal dough, and while barley flour certainly contains gluten, I don't think oatmeal does.

Just revisted this thread. Actually, to be pedantic, bannocks should be made of bere, not barley, flour.

Pain d'egalite


By order of the General Council on 16 November 1793, to take effect from 6 December 1793, only the following bread was to be baked:

Bakers will only cook a single type of bread.
The quality of this bread will be that resulting from a mix of three quarts of wheat and one quart of rye.
Bakers will cook loaves of 8 pounds, of 4 pounds and of one pound; they will not be allowed to use other divisions.
The price of equality bread is fixed as follows:
The 8 pound loaf, 1 livre.
The 4 pound loaf, 10 sols, 6 deniers
The one pound loaf, 3 sols.
(Rabouin)

I believe Barley or Chestnuts could be substituted for Rye.


It didn't last long.


Pain d'egalite

Topic title in Anglo-Saxon (think this is normalised to Mddle West Saxon) urne gedæghwamlican hlaf syle us todæg
urne gedæghwamlican hlaf syle us todæg

*edited* paste went doolally.

LadyinRetirement wrote:

The three main grains I've been told to avoid are wheat, barley and rye

I seem to recall a story from the 1970s involving an inter-community school-exchange programme in Trentino-South Tyrol, whereby Italian-speaking kids were guested up-valley in a German-language school and then later returned the favour with German-speaking kids being guested down-valley in an Italian-language school. It was noted on the first leg, that many of the Italian-speaking children complained of upset stomachs and diarrhoea. This was put down to them having eaten the local, high-fibre rye bread which their constitutions were not accustomed to. Conversely on the return leg, some of the German-speaking children complained of bloating and constipation. This was put down to them having eaten the local, fluffy white wheat bread which their constitutions were not used to.

The growing of rye is better suited to the poor Alpine soil of South Tyrol, while wheat grows better in the deeper soil further south towards the Po Valley. I’m sure that these distinctions were appreciated well before the 1970s and that, for instance, some prisoners-of-war in earlier eras must have suffered similarly, but it’s interesting to note that South Tyrol was so attuned to such matters that the world’s first gluten-free hotels opened there over 20 years ago.

P.S. It's a relief GG to see that you haven't been taken over by a terminator-bot after all.

August Zang,1807-1888, who introduced the Viennese steam oven to Paris in the late 1830s:



wiki:

The Vienna bread-production process innovations are often credited for baking with steam leading to different crust characteristics. In 1837, August Zang, a native of Austria, opened a Bakery in Paris called the "Boulangerie Viennoise" which first introduced steam baking to France, and whose process was described in detail in an entry on Viennese Bread in an 1849 French Industrial Chemistry book: "the crust of these breads glazes while baking in an atmosphere of steam, to which effect, one places on the floor of the oven a pile of wet hay, well washed in advance, which produces a cloud of steam." Decades later, another Viennese bakery in Paris introduced the mechanical steam oven, eliminating the need for wet hay, along with cereal press yeast; the United States Government report on the 1867 Universal Exposition  details the process used in the "Viennese bakery of Mr. Vanner", including his use of a steam oven, which by then had become quite popular in France:

Quote :

Austrian and Hungarian flour is the best flour in the world and contributes the most important part to the excellence of his bread. He uses it is true the yeast of Fanta of Vienna and believes it to be the best but whether best or not it requires more watching and more care than the Holland yeast. Mr Vanner's oven resembles the improved oven of the French mechanical bakery of Messrs Vaury & Plouin only that the floor has more inclination. He introduces steam into the oven while baking the same as the French so that all his bread is cooked in a thick atmosphere of vapor. Mr Vanner arrives at his magnificent results therefore by the superiority of his material and by a careful and laborious and intelligent manipulation of them His secret goes no further than this.

The Austrian kipferl is thought to be the origin of the French croisssant, which began appearing around this time.


Zang's Bakery with attached tea room:

There might also have been a distinct temperature influence over the rye / wheat dichotomy. The old saw ran "Wet and heat, sow your wheat, hot and dry, then barley try, cold and dry, opt fo rye, cold and wet, on oats you'll bet"