I. Skim the text for general understanding .Pay attention to the words in bold

Breads are a group of staple foods prepared by baking, steaming, or frying dough consisting minimally of flour and water

Traditionally bread is based on flour derived from the cereal wheat. It is often made from a wheat-flour dough that is cultured with yeast, allowed to rise, and finally baked in an oven. Owing to its high levels of gluten (which give the dough sponginess and elasticity), wheat is the most common grain used for the preparation of bread, but bread is also made from the flour of rye, barley, maize (or corn), and oats, usually, but not always, in combination with wheat flour.

Salt is present in most cases, and usually a leavening agent such as yeast, is used. Some sorts of bread also contain spice s and grains (poppy seeds). Grains are also used for decorative purposes.

Many consider bread to be one of the oldest, if not the oldest ‘processed’,

food. It is likely that the place of discovery was in the Middle East where

the origins of cereal farming also lie in antiquity (Zohary, 1969). In its earliest

forms, bread would have been very different from how we see it in industrialized

countries today, and it would probably be closest in character to the modern flat

breads of the Middle East.

Bread is a popular food in Western and most other societies except for the Asian societies that typically prefer rice.