How to Make Bread From Wheat

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Long before agriculture, by about 20,000 BC, humans are experimenting with grains. "I think they did absolutely everything to them," she says of early farmers. The author's father grew hundreds of acres of wheat and tried to make bread out of it. He learned that many years later when he moved to Mexico where people still grind grains.

Rachel Laudan, visiting scholar at the University of Texas and author of Cuisine and Empire, talks with EconTalk host Russ Roberts about the history of food. Topics covered include the importance of grain, the spread of various styles of cooking, why French cooking has elite status, and the reach of McDonald's. The conversation concludes with a discussion of the appeal of local food and other recent food passions.