French, Italian, and Spanish, farine and
farina, come from the Latin for a kind of
grain (far), the English word “flour” arose
in medieval times from “flower,” meaning
the best part of the ground grain: that is,
the portion left after screening out the
large particles of germ and bran. To a
medieval Englishman, “whole wheat flour”
would have been a contradiction in terms!The Decline and Revival
Of Traditional Breads
Twentieth-Century Industrialization The
20th century brought two broad trends to
Europe and North America. One was a decline
in the per capita consumption of plain bread.
As incomes rose, people could afford to eat
more meat and more high-sugar, high-fat
cakes and pastries. So we now lean less
heavily than did our ancestors on the staff of
life. The other trend was the industrialization