How did ancient humans see tall growing grass (wheat), think to harvest it, mill it, mix it with water then put the mixture into fire to make ‘bread’?

Question

I am trying to comprehend how something that required methodical steps and ‘good luck’ came to be a staple of civilisations for thousands of years. Thank you. (Sorry if this question isn’t correct for ELI5, I searched and couldn’t find it asked. Hope it’s in-bounds.)

In: 1505

Answer 1

All kinds of animals eat seeds. Lots of plants have seeds available to eat. You can try and chew them, but they’re hard. Boil them and they soften. This mixture of boiled grain and water has names like “oatmeal”

If you do this with wheat, you’ll have a bunch of shells that don’t taste good. You have to break the seeds first if you want it to have better texture, so you *separate the wheat from the chaff* before boiling the wheat. Boiled wheat is called “gruel.”

If you mix wheat and not enough water and then DON’T boil it, what you’ve made is called *dough*. If it sits out for a while, it’ll naturally ferment from the *yeast* that lives in wheat.

Boiling it at this point doesn’t work too well, and eating it raw might make you sick… so… apply heat from a fire, and it’ll turn into bread.