Bread of my Ancestors

Wheat is a relatively new addition to the human digestive system. While humans have been on the planet for 100,000 years, for 90,000 years we ate what we could gather or hunt. This adds up to a 45 year old human eating wheat for the first time at 41 years of age. While 10,000 years IS definitely long enough for the human body to evolve it’s digestion processes, we also have to consider that wheat was primarily grown in Southeast Asia and didn’t make its way to Europe, (where my family hails from) until much, much later. The bread that our ancestors ate was very, very different than the bread that we eat today. I am explaining this because when I made my first loaf of gluten free bread last night that’s what I was thinking. This is the bread of my ancestors. Well, except they didn’t have Xanathan Gum.
 The bread I made was from a mix containing different starches (think potato) and rice flours. The yeast in the package was several months expired which didn’t help the matter.
I mixed the bread, being very careful to follow the instructions. The bread didn’t rise at all until I put it into the oven to bake at which point it gustily soared 8 inches above the rim of my bread pan. Didn’t matter. I was still hopeful. When it was done we had to cut it out of the pan, which made me feel tearful since I was anticipating a beautiful bread loaf that could be sliced and used for sandwich bread for the kids. But still, I was hopeful. The bread of my ancestors was waiting. I pulled off a chunk from the warm loaf and popped it into my mouth. The bread of my ancestors… well, it’s pretty nasty.
I was so disappointed that it made me sad. I was anticipating something that didn’t taste like THAT. It was awful! I put some oil and spices on the table to dip it in which definitely helped get the bread down, but after dinner I could not get the taste out of my mouth. I was mad at the bread of my ancestors. I was mad that it didn’t have that luscious taste of wheat even if it did have the texture. I was mad that it smelled sort of fishy.
The good news is that regardless of how I felt about it, the kids tagged it, not minding at all the fishy taste that was masked by the olive oil and spice. I don’t think they even knew it was different at all.
I have to master this bread thing though. Connor told me today that all he wanted for dinner was a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. And that made me sadder than even the bread of my ancestors.