The Sourdough School

Centre of Research & Education in Nutrition & Digestibility of Bread & the Gut Microbiome

The bread that you eat every day has a powerful, influence on both your phyical and mental health. We teach a groundbreaking, evidence-based approach to bread to nourish your gut microbiome and support health. Our courses are open to wide range of people, including bakers and healthcare professionals to learn how to bake and eat beautiful bread as lifestyle medicine. "Vanessa’s work on sourdough and the gut microbiome is changing the way we think of food, health and baking.” - Tim Spector
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A history of sourdough, bread, yeast & wheat

500 years of bread, yeast and wheat history in 200 pictures.

There is something particularly wonderful about getting close the bread that we used to make through looking at pictures and reading recipes, especially when trying to understand how we got to the sourdough bread that we make today. It is bread that has shaped civilisation.  Empires were built on bread.  Wars were lost and won based on bread. Kingdoms fell on lack of bread.  Riots, revolutions and governments were dependent on wheat and bread.  Our laws were formed around the supply of wheat and flour and production of bread.  Bread was even used as payment.  It has taken quite some time and effort to catalogue this collection, and I am delighted to finally be able to share it here as well as on the sourdough bread making courses I teach.

I started collecting bread history aged 19. I remember the first addition to my collection.  It was late summer of 1992 in the South West of France.  I wandered into a beautiful 18th century shop which I soon discovered had a secret compartment where the owner had once hidden residence fighters from the Gestapo in the 2nd world war. There was a memorial high on the crag overlooking the town not 100 yards away where many of the locals had been shot and thrown over. I hesitated because of the cost. It was a the small feisty old French woman, who had risked her life hiding the resistance that assured me that finding an old image of bread was rare thing.  She looked right into my eyes and said I must never pass up on something rare. I wasn’t earning much as an apprentice baker, and I had rent to pay.  I could hardly afford it but I figured I should take the advice. I’m still grateful to that wonderful, brave lady because it was the beginning of a collection that I truly treasure.

The earliest picture is from the 1500’s.  The photos are shown in date order.

1517 – oats – barley – lyon
1585 – harvest – fertile cresent
1588 – alfred – dividing the loaf – uk
1600 - Making bread - Morroco
1650 – law – corn – uk
1694 – bread – kneading – amsterdam
1724 – bread – france
1740 – Netherlands
1800 – Law – uk
1801 – Law – UK
1801 – Law – UK
1802 – Selling bread in Brittany - France
1813 – Baker – UK
1813 – Baker – UK
1815 – Corn laws – London
1840 – Botanical picture of wheat – UK
1842 – Corn law  – UK
1842 – Corn law booklet – UK
1842 – Corn laws - London
1843 – Corn law – Dublin
1842 – Corn laws repeal – UK
1845 – Corn laws – London
1844 – From harvest to loaf – Czech
1846 – Corn laws – UK
1846 – Riot outside a boulangerie – Paris
1850 – Miling machine – UK
1846 – Baker and the corn laws - UK
1852 – Corn laws – UK
1853 – Bakery – France
1854 – Bread riot in Exeter - UK
1857 – Flour mill – London
1858 – Bread making machine – London
1859 – Military bread making in Aldershot – UK
1859 – Harvest in Brittany – France
1860 – Boadicea – UK
1860 – Bread machine – UK
1860 – Bread making machine – UK
1860 – Gladiators – London
1860 – Miller & brewer – UK
1860 – New Year cake – UK
1863 – Kneading
1865 – Milling machinery – UK
1865 – Wheat – UK
1870 – Botanical picture of common blight
1870 – Harvest – UK
1871 – Christmas pudding – London
1871 – War in Paris
1872 – Children with bread
1872 – Kneading – UK
1872 – London mill fire – UK
1872 – War – UK
1875 – Fertile crescent – Syria
1876 – Christmas pudding – UK
1877 – Selling bread – UK
1879 – Baker – UK
1879 – Children with bread - UK
1879 – Bread during the Zulu war
1879 – Milling corn – UK
1880 – Reaping wheat - UK
1880 – Bread carrier – Paris
1881 – Baking – Greece
1881 – Milling machine – UK
1881 – Salt mines
1882 – Olive harvest
1883 – Miller's daughter – UK
1884 – Oranges – UK
1886 – Advertising Hovis – UK
1886 – Thatching – UK
1888 – Good bread booklet
1888 – Potatoes – Ireland
1889 – Christmas pudding – UK
1889 – Rye bread – Russia
1889 – Baking bread in Aldershot - UK
1890 – Hyde Park bakery plan – UK
1890 – Bread & soup – Switzerland
1890 – Bread humour