The Flatbread (Cross-Cultural)

Universal — predates all written history; the oldest archaeological flatbread evidence is from Jordan, 14,400 years ago

The flatbread is the oldest cooked food in human history — the first and simplest use of ground grain, water, and heat. Before leavening was understood, before ovens were built, before ceramics were invented, humans were making flatbreads on hot stones. The flatbread predates civilisation and is present in every food culture on earth that has ever cultivated or gathered grain. Flour and water, heat and time: the simplest equation in cooking produces the widest variety of results. Wheat flatbreads (chapati, pita, tortilla, lavash, naan, focaccia) differ from each other not in their fundamental ingredients but in hydration, cooking method, leavening or lack of it, thickness, and the fat (if any) incorporated. Corn flatbreads are older than wheat in the Americas. Teff flatbreads in Ethiopia. Rice flatbreads in Southeast Asia. The specific grain matters; the underlying principle is identical. The flatbread's universality makes it the most democratic food on earth. There is no cuisine so poor that it lacks a flatbread, no culture so isolated that it did not develop one independently. The flatbread is also the most versatile food — it is simultaneously plate, utensil, and food, wrapping other ingredients, scooping sauces, absorbing juices. Cooking method determines character: direct flame produces char and puff (pita, chapati, injera); stone or tawa produces even, dry heat; clay oven walls (tandoor, tabun) produce the characteristic blistered crust; comal produces the dry, slightly nutty character of Mexican tortilla.

• Naan
• Pita
• Corn Tortilla
• Injera
• Focaccia
• Lavash
• Chapati
• Roti Canai
• Flatbread Lahoh
• Msemen

Nutty, charred, wheaten — varies from soft and pliable to crisp and crackling depending on method