Zeller Cellar Word Fun #20

Just like last month we need to grab our sweaters as we go down to the cold, cold cellar. Brrrr! Since we had that snow storm, it’s even colder down here. Let’s pick from the Silly Sayings box. Your turn.

Aha! “The best thing since sliced bread.” That means something is great, excellent, the best. For example, “My new video game is the best thing since sliced bread.” Or “We don’t have any math homework this week. My math teacher is the best thing since sliced bread.” You know, those words make it sound like bread wasn’t always sliced.

Let’s go back upstairs and snoop around to figure out the history of this Silly Saying.

As you know bread is made from grains, like wheat or oats. Scientists have evidence of grains being ground for over 30,000 years. People gathered wild grains and boiled them in water to make gruel which is cooked cereal like oatmeal. About 10,000 years ago, they started growing grains like farmers do today. At that time the breads were flat, because people didn’t know about yeast which makes bread rise. Yeast was discovered in Egypt about 2,500 years ago.

Of course bread has to be baked in an oven. Eventually in the Roman Empire “the ovens were massive: 20 feet in diameter, wood-fired, lined with brick and tile, and fitted with a rotating metal grate on which the loaves were baked.”

So when did bread get sliced? Bread that was sliced happened about 1930 when bread slicing machines were invented. A company called Wonder Bread was the first to package and distribute sliced bread that people could buy in stores. Their bread was white and soft. People thought meant it was fresher. Their packages are known for their red, yellow and blue balloons.

From: A Definitive Timeline of Bread (from thespruceeats.com ) March 11, 2020 and history.com (Elizabeth Nix Updated March 28, 2023)