Focaccia Actually Dates Back As Far As The Neolithic Era
Since ancient Roman times, focaccia has been a staple of Italian meals. It is traditionally eaten as a dipping bread and torn apart by hand.
It has become a symbol of culinary simplicity and is often a favorite at restaurants. The bread also has a rich history.
According to new research, the origins of the flatbread can actually be traced as far back as the Neolithic era. During the Late Neolithic, between 7000 and 5000 B.C.E., Mesopotamian communities may have started the culinary tradition thousands of miles away from Rome.
A new study focuses on evidence recovered from fully agricultural communities in the Fertile Crescent region in what is now Syria and Turkey.
Researchers from the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB) in Spain, the Universities of Istanbul and the Koç, and the University of La Sapienza in Rome analyzed 13 ceramic fragments unearthed from various archaeological sites in the region, including Mezraa Teleilat, Akarçay Tepe, and Tell Sabi Abyad.
The research team believes the pieces once belonged to husking trays, which were large, oval-shaped containers with low walls.
They were made from coarse clay and were used for the baking of loaves of bread and focaccias with different flavors.
The researchers used stereomicroscopy and chemical analysis to detect the residues of plants and other organic materials on the husking trays.
The residues indicate that cereals such as wheat or barley were reduced to flour, which was processed in the trays.
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These trays also had crudely made scoring marks that were arranged repetitively in a uniform pattern over the internal surface of the cooking tools.
Some of the ceramic fragments even contained tiny traces of animal fat and plant seasonings. The findings suggest that the loaves of bread were placed on the trays into domed ovens for about two hours at baking temperatures as high as 788 degrees Fahrenheit (420 degrees Celsius).
Each tray could hold focaccia loaves as heavy as 6.6 pounds, leading the researchers to conclude that the breads were meant for communal consumption.
Overall, there is clear evidence that the husking trays were used to make ancient flatbreads such as focaccia. The findings also point to how the tradition of focaccia evolved within ancient societies.
“Our study offers a vivid picture of communities using the cereals they cultivated to prepare breads and ‘focaccias’ enriched with various ingredients and consumed in groups,” said Sergio Taranto, the lead author of the study and a doctoral researcher at UAB.
“The use of the husking trays we identified leads us to consider that this Late Neolithic culinary tradition developed over approximately six centuries and was practiced in a wide area of the Near East.”
The details of the study were published in Scientific Reports.
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