Every single recent form of ploughing derives from the use of the hoe. The plough appeared as an evolution of the ard plough as it became longer the haft of the hoe evolved into the arrow of the plough and the blade became the ploughshare. Throughout Europe, cave paintings show the use of these tools.
During the Neolithic age, flint saws were used by peasants during the harvests. These were later inserted into curbed wooden hafts and evolved into genuine iron sickles, which are still in use today. The first combine-harvester was constructed by the Gauls and was the ancestor of current reapers.
Until the 19th century, threshing was carried out with a flail. Horse-driven reaper-binders appeared only at the end of this period. The introduction of steam-power led to the mechanisation of all farming processes in the 20th century and drastically transformed working conditions. Today, thanks to modern reaper-binders, the whole process takes place directly in the field.
At first, man mashed cereal into a rough kind of porridge. Pestles and mortars appeared later and man began to mill cereal and cook unleavened breads between two hot flat stones. Numerous archaeological excavations discovered ancient silos used during the Neolithic age to stock the cereals and the mortarstones used to crush the seeds.
The first man-driven mills appeared at the beginning of the Christian era. Milling techniques improved, with one stone being rubbed against another fixed to the mill. Energy capture, used to set gears in motion, evolved into the current milling techniques. after having been water-driven, then from the 3rd century onwards wind-driven, then steam - and finally electricity - driven, milling has gone through extraordinary technical changes throughout the centuries. Even today, many water-driven mills can still be found in Bresse Bourguignonne.
The Bresse Bourguignonne Ecomuseum offers visitors a discovery tour of seven milling sites, showing how ancestral knowledge and techniques can be adapted to a small structure.
The first breads were unleavened . The peasants of the Neolithic age baked unleavened breads and the first leavened breads appeared in Egypt only by accident. Traces of well organised workshops established in Rome prove the growing level of activity in bakery from that time onwards. The ruins of Pompeii are a perfect example of how man-driven mills and bakeries worked together in single workshops.
In France, the Bakers'Guild was founded in the 13th century. Prior to that, sieving flour and making bread was part of the same job. Because of the guild's power - it were virtually able to feed the nation - bakers had to comply with numerous and strict regulations such as selling quotas, legal barriers to become a baker or a grain-measurer, taxes on selling-prices, weights, clothings, according to the dimensions of the shops. Everything was subject to taxation and rules, in a job that was facing growing competition from home-made bread. Bakers had to wait until the second half of the 19th century to see the profession freed from many its constraints with the proclamation of free trade in the baking industry.
Today, baking is an important sector of the French craft industry with 44000 bakeries employing about 90000 craftsmen. Craft bakery represents some 80% of the trade, the other 20% being mass-produced. Bread is a simple product that is part of our tradition and everyday life. Bakers endeavour to meet the changing needs of their customers, so that there are in France some 80 regional forms of bread. Following the new trends in agriculture, millers and bakers will probably turn to new products (such as organic breads...).
