I recently read an article called “Breads of the World” which actually featured European breads, or the Western world’s breads. First on the list was the Swiss Zopf, though actually I remember it as Züpfe, a braided bread similar to the Jewish challah. As a matter of fact, I used to buy challah from a nearby Jewish bakery on a Sunday morning.
Bread goes way back in Western history, and probably the Mideast too, for Christ used it at the Last Supper. It was a triumph of the transition from hunter-gatherers to the agricultural society which started civilizations. If it had anything to do with the success of Western Civilization I don’t know, but certainly its ready availability encouraged scientific and other endeavors, not all of them good.
Armies could travel with it (no need to go out and hunt) and cities no longer needed forests nearby if wheat could be grown in the fields. It truly, for centuries, fed humankind.
It is still Europe that makes the best breads, as the article maintained, and with butter and jam and a good cup of coffee, what more can you ask on a Sunday morning, other than peace or the company of the Prince of Peace.
Civilization 