Bread has been baked and eaten for around thirty thousand years. Pliny the Elder noted that the skimmed foam on the top of beer produced a lighter type of bread, so yeast was recognised as a raising agent, even then.

The art of the baker is a long and honourable profession. In ancient Rome and Athens bakers plied their trade, selling bread to the citizens. Bread making beinga time consuming task, housewives were glad to be able to buy it ready made.

In Pompeii, a few years ago, we saw the remains of the devastation. Domestic details, like the bakeries, added a poignancy.

I didn't eat any bread I can remember in Sorrento but, inFlorida I ate ciabatta with rosemary and ham. In Minorca, we had bread smeared with olive oil, tomatoes and cloves of garlic.

Oftenabroad,olives and bread arrive unbidden to occupyyou until the main course arrives. Idon't like starters of any sort, but that's what happens.

With my daughters and theirfamilies arrivinghome from Disneyland, Paris,Igota few things in for them today, including bread.

In the supermarket, somelarge loaves were1.20 each,others, same size, hot as well, were 60p each, so I bought two.

Gluten-free loaves were 2, though they can cost32 a loaf. No, Icouldn't believe it, either.If I needed gluten free, I'd find it hard to swallow at that price.('The cheaper the grapes' . . . you know the rest of thatKenny Rogers song, I expect.)

It's possible to have gluten free bread on prescription, apparently.

Sourdoughs sell for 5 in local delis. A knob of sourdough is kept from batch to batch, as a starter.

The breadhas a coarse, bubbly texture and it's best to eat it on the day it's bought, because it doesn't keep too well.

Wehave tried a loaf of black rye bread, but it was not liked by either of us. It looked interesting, but it was heavy as a stone. I suspect it is an acquired taste.

When M@S was selling potato and rosemary bread, Ifound itdelicious.I'd heat it in the oven for five minutes and, like a cat we had, I didn't like to be disturbed wheneating it.

In St Clears, years ago, farmers wives keptbread for three days after baking,because when staleit did not get eaten so fast.Enjoyment was not a consideration. The government, too, during the last war, advised that bread shouldnot be consumed when fresh. My aunt, who made her own bread, thought it indigestible when eaten hot, though that was how I liked it.

At the start of the twentieth century, the rich ate white bread, the poorer people brown. According to a study, the trend has reversed.

I don't like brown bread. It gives me indigestion and I lost an expensive fillingto a granary loaf.

I eatspelt bread now and then.Spelt is an old variety of wheatand it has a higher proportion of protein than the usual wheat. It makes a change if you can getit.

The price of food has risen by about forty per cent in the last few months. (This has been noted in the Morgan household, though it's nothing to do with bread. I rarely eat it and Peter has only two small loaves a week).Yet the price of bread isused by the government as an indicator of the cost of living.

I'll give abread recipe tomorrow. It's not necessarily cheaper than buying, but it's fun and the house will smell like a bakery or a brewery.