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This Episode:
The conversation with /u/AgentDCF continues, as pick up with talking about how milling and baking relates to the scientific revolution, before moving into to discussing the industrialization of mills and the connection to the golden age of microbiology. We then discuss adulteration and food purity and the role of The Lancet in reforming bakeries. The conversation concludes with a discussion of bread in the context of the British Imperial system. (60min)
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Coming up after that: /u/jimedorje discusses Buddhism, Tibet, and the founding of Bhutan.
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A little delayed today, my apologies.
Special thanks to Eric Hacke, Elm, Andrew Stead, William Ryan, Stuart Gorman, Bill Rubin, Will Raybould, Sarah Gilbert, Mark Katerberg, Vlad, and Max M. for their generous support of the podcast through the AskHistorians Patreon. And thanks to all our new supporters as well!
As announced on the show, we're doing the book giveaway monthly now thanks to the generous people above and all the rest of the patreon supporters. The winner gets announced on the first episode of each month, which is this one! So a big congratulations to Matthew Suozzo for being the winner this month! The books to choose from are:
Geoffery Parker Global Crisis: War, Climate Change, and Catastrophe in the Seventeeth Century via /u/lubyak
Eugene Rogan The Arabs: A History via /u/cptbuck
Mary Beard SPQR via both /u/valkine and /u/thefairyguineapig
and my pick Elizabeth Fenn Encounters at the Heart of the World: A History of the Mandan People via /u/Reedstilt
And, of course, a big thanks to /u/agentdcf for making it real how much he actually meant it when he said he might be one of the world's authorities on milling in 19th century Britain.
Listening to this, I realized that I had read most of it before in various posts by /u/AgentDCF, which just goes to show that I spend entirely too much time on Reddit
Fascinating podcast. I just happened to finish part 2 right before I was sitting in a meeting with a client who ships wheat from North America into a milling facility in Italy.
I wast listening to both of these episodes again while on a long drive. Here's what's bothering me:
There a lot of talk about how the softer wheats were a problem for English millers in the early-to-mid 19th century. What was the milling practice in places like Egypt or Italy or India that had been making bread using softer wheats since time immemorial?