Humans like us evolved ~300,000 years ago, the ice age started ~115,000 years ago. What is definitely stupid is that we knew to grind up grains and boil them to make porridge when the ice age started but nobody figured out how to go one step further and make bread until ~11,000 BCE after the ice age ended
Tbf bread isn’t very intuitive, and when you can make barely enough porridge to survive, you probably don’t want to waste any experimenting. I once read that beer was invented before bread. No idea if that’s true or even relevant
Yeah beer can happen basically by accident, and once you’ve figured out how to brew on purpose you now have the reliable source of yeast you need for bread
The most popular theory I know of is that there were porridge jars that had encrusted yeast on them and that ancient people just thought they were magic and that porridge stored in those just turned into beer.
Humans like us evolved ~300,000 years ago, the ice age started ~115,000 years ago. What is definitely stupid is that we knew to grind up grains and boil them to make porridge when the ice age started but nobody figured out how to go one step further and make bread until ~11,000 BCE after the ice age ended
Tbf bread isn’t very intuitive, and when you can make barely enough porridge to survive, you probably don’t want to waste any experimenting. I once read that beer was invented before bread. No idea if that’s true or even relevant
Yeah beer can happen basically by accident, and once you’ve figured out how to brew on purpose you now have the reliable source of yeast you need for bread
The most popular theory I know of is that there were porridge jars that had encrusted yeast on them and that ancient people just thought they were magic and that porridge stored in those just turned into beer.
Or they understood the residue made the difference. They weren’t stupid, and understanding cause and effect is kind of our whole deal as a species.