FOCACCIA

    Focaccia is a flat leavened oven-baked Italian bread, similar in style and texture to pizza; in some places, it is called "pizza bianca". Focaccia can be served as a side dish or as sandwich bread.

   When humans first started to understand that wild grains from the ripe grasses found in the fields surrounding their villages could be mashed, mixed with water, made into patties, and cooked on some type of pan or fire, they may not known it, but they had a close ancestor to what became focaccia. When talking of focaccia, in fact, we trace the development of this ancestral flatbread over the course of more than 2,500 years in Italy.

    We know that, at some point in history, flatbread made out of a simple mixture of flour and water started to be flavored with wild herbs, and eventually this evolved to be leavened and cooked in an oven. But, originally, this Italian flatbread was simply cooked on the heart.

    The word focaccia, in fact, derives from the Latin focácia, which literally means "baked on the ashes of a fireplace." In contemporary Italian dictionaries, focaccia is still defined as a flattened piece of dough that is cooked on the hearth or in an oven.

    From the origins of the world, we have proof that the unleavened form of focaccia must have been earliest form of bread in Italy.

 

 

 

Reference: PIZZA The Ultimate Cookbook - Barbara Caracciolo -2020

                  Wikipedia -2022