Step One: Research

I have been researching the history of baking in general as well as vegan baking specifically for my class research paper. I will refrain from boring you with too many details, but there were a few points that I found really interesting. For example, the first baked good, baring no resemblance to what we now think of as baked, can be traced back 20,000 years ago! The “bread” as it’s considered was a mixture of ground grasses, wheat, and water left to “bake” on a flat rock in the sun. I would like to point out that such bread would be vegan ;) Seriously, though, who decided that was the first known example of baking? I would imagine some ground up grasses and water could have been accidentally left out in the rain, then baked in the sun without anyone consciously trying to make something edible.
I’m certainly glad that I was born in the twentieth century. It is believed that ideas like cooking and baking foods were discovered independently in different civilizations. Now, I can just check out a book at the library or search the web for all kinds of information, no need to reinvent a known process.