When I read this, I about fell out of my chair. There’s
a Super Target (”Super” in Arizona implies
they sell groceries as well) across the street from a
Super Walmart down here. They offer the same things,
operate less than a quarter mile from each other, and
yet both are dramatically different. Target of course
is cleaner, seems to offer higher end items (though it
all could just be better packaging of the same crap),
and is a tad more expensive.
And then there’s Walmart, in all its glory… They match
anyone’s
coupons, have a good selection, and if you ignore the
fact that sometimes you will see flies raiding their potatoes, some of
their perishable food items aren’t that bad either. But you know
you’re in Walmart.
Socially it seems that certain people either “fit in” at
Target, or fit better with Walmart. You’ll be more likely to see
a Lexus SUV in the Target parking lot. You’ll be more likely to
spot a woman with 6 children packing themselves into a 15 year old minivan
at Walmart.
Some general books on wheat foods technology, such as Wheat:
chemistry and technology, edited by the late Y. Pomeranz, contain
very brief discussions of the historical origins of wheat and of baking,
but these generally make reference to older texts and articles. A recent
historical sketch of the development of bread baking, including chronological
tables of major events in the history of bread from about 7000 B.C. to
1987 A.D., was published in French by Hubert Chiron in the publication INRA
Mensuel, no. 2, 1990, p. 15+. Mr. Chiron also published an interesting chapter
on bread history (in French) in the book La panification franÁaise. New
York &
Paris : \
Internet access to collections of papyrus fragments (which may or may not contain
reference to baking history) is available at the University
of Michigan. At
least one similar collection is still in the indexing stage.
