For a long time, everything revolved around bread. Providing more than half of people's daily calories, bread was the life-source of Europe for centuries. In the middle of 19th century, a third of household expenditure was spent on bread. Why, then, does it only account for 0.8% of expenditure and just 12% of daily calories today?
In this book, Peter Scholliers delves into the history of bread to map out its defining moments and people. From the price revolution of the 1890s that led to affordable and pure white bread, to the taste revolution of the 1990s that ushered in healthy brown bread, he studies consumers, bakers and governments to explain how and why this food that once powered an entire continent has fallen by the wayside, and what this means for the modern age.

From prices and consumption to legislation and technology, Scholliers shows how the history of bread has been shaped by subtle cultural shifts as well as top-down decisions from ruling bodies. From the small home baker to booming factories, he follows changes in agriculture, transport, production and policy since the 19th century to explain why bread, once the centre of everything, is not so today.

Peter Scholliers is Professor of Contemporary History at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel. He edited Food, Drink and Identity: Cooking, Eating and Drinking in Europe since the Middle Ages (2001), and published Food Culture in Belgium.
Peter Scholliers is Professor of History at Vrije Universiteit Brussel. He specializes in European food history and has written numerous works on Belgian foodways.

Introduction
Part I: The Consumer
1. Eating Bread
2. Types of Bread
3. Prices and Purchasing power
4. Acquiring Bread: Baking, Buying and Stealing
5. Calories, Kilos and Grams
6. Bad bread: Fraud, Additives and Riots
Part II: The Baker
7. Artisanal Baking
8. Technology and Hygiene
9. The Factories
10. Wages, Costs and Profits
11. Image, Status and Wealth
12. Politics, Strikes and Consultations
Part III: The Government
13. Grain Policy
14. Price Control
15. Fraud on the Track
16. School and Education
17. Committees, Councils, Institutes and Agencies
Conclusion: Good Bread
Glossary
Bibliography
Appendices
Index