Product Code Database
A baker is a tradesperson who baking and sometimes Sales and other products made of flour by using an oven or other concentrated heat source. The place where a baker works is called a bakery.
In ancient Rome several centuries later, the first mass production of breads occurred, and "the baking profession can be said to have started at that time." Ancient Roman bakers used honey and Cooking oil in their products, creating pastries rather than breads. In ancient Rome, bakers (Latin, pistor) were sometimes slaves, who were (like other slave-) sometimes Manumission.Sandra R. Joshel, Work, Identity, and Legal Status at Rome: A Study of the Occupational Inscriptions (University of Oklahoma Press, 1992), pp. 15, 95-97. Large households in Rome normally had their own bakers.Joshel, p. 96. During those times, most of the people used to bake their own bread but bakeries (pistrina) were popular all over the towns.
The Gauls are credited with discovering that the addition of beer froth to bread dough made well-leavened bread, marking the use of controlled yeast for bread dough.Wayne Gisslen, Professional Baking (6th ed.: John Wiley & Sons, 2013), p. 5-7.
Bakers were often part of the guild system, which was well-established by the sixteenth century: master bakers instructed apprentices and were assisted by journeymen. In Amsterdam in 1694, for example, the cake-bakers, pie-bakers, and rusk-bakers separated from an earlier Bread Bakers Guild and formed their own guild, regulating the trade.Joop Witteveen, "Rye, A Daily Bread and a Daily Treat" in Oxford Symposium on Food & Cookery, 1989: Staple Foods (Prospect: 1990), p. 243. A fraternity of bakers in London existed as early as 1155, according to records of payments to the Exchequer; the Worshipful Company of Bakers was formed by charters dated 1486, 1569, and 1685. The guild still exists today, with mostly ceremonial and charitable functions. Five bakers have served as lord mayor of London.John Kennedy Melling, London's Guilds and Liveries (Shire Publications, 2003), p. 41.
A group of bakers is called a "tabernacle".
In addition to the secular aspect of baking, Ming bakers also were responsible for providing pastries for use in various rituals, festivals and ceremonies, such as zongzi. In "Shi Fu Meets a Friend at Tanque" buns were provided for the construction ceremony.
Within bakeries, traditional patriarchal hierarchy controlled. For the family-owned bakery, the eldest male figure (usually the father) in the highest position of the hierarchy. For example, in Feng Menglong's story, when Mr. Bo went out looking for the family's lost silver, his wife was ordered to take care of the bakery.
Ming fiction and art records examples of various bakers; for example, in Feng Menglong's story, the Bo couple owns a bakery to sell the cakes and snacks while in Water Margin, the character Wu Dalang does not have a settled store and sells pancakes on the shoulder pole along the street The Ming-era painter Qiu Ying's work Along the River During the Qingming Festival shows food stores alongside the street and peddlers who are selling food along the streets.
The Ming work Ming Dai Tong Su Ri Yong Lei Shu, which records techniques and items needed in Ming daily life, devotes a full chapter to culinary skills, including the preparation of pancakes and other types of cakes.
The work The Plum in the Golden Vase mentions baozi (steam bun).
A study of the English city of Manchester from 1824–85, during the Industrial Revolution, determined that "baker and shopkeeper" was the third-most common occupation, with 178 male bakers, 19 female bakers, and 8 bakers of unknown sex in the city at that time.Joyce Burnette, Gender, Work and Wages in Industrial Revolution Britain (Cambridge University Press, 2008), p. 35, table 1.6. This occupation was less common that cloth manufacturer and tavern/public house worker, but more common than cotton spinner, merchant, calico printer, or grocer.
In 1895, the New York State Assembly passed a reformist "bakeshop law" which included protections for bakery workers; the law "banned employees from sleeping in the bakeries; specified the drainage, plumbing and maintenance necessary to keep the bakeries sanitary ( were specifically allowed to stay on the premise—presumably to deal with the rats); limited the daily and weekly maximum of hours worked; and established an inspectorate to make sure these conditions were met."Maria Balinska, The Bagel: The Surprising History of a Modest Bread (Yale University Press, 2008), p. 109.Gary R. Hartman, Roy M. Mersky & Cindy L. Tate, Landmark Supreme Court Cases: The Most Influential Decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States (Infobase, 2014), p. 145. The legislation was soon replicated in other states.Balinska, p. 109. Joseph Lochner, a bakery owner in Utica, New York, was subsequently convicted of violating the law for forcing his employees to work more than sixty hours a week. He appealed his case to the U.S. Supreme Court, which decided, in the highly influential case of Lochner v. New York (1905), over a dissent from Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, that the labor law violated a constitutional right to "freedom of contract".Balinska, p. 110. This case marked the beginning of a "pro-employer, laissez-faire" era, later known as the Lochner era, which "would cast a long shadow over American law, society, and politics" until the late 1930s, when Lochner was repudiated. Frustrated with the rapid deterioration of working conditions, bakery workers in New York went on strike in August 1905.Balinska, p. 111.
The prophet Elisha, then Jesus, performed the miracle of the multiplication of the loaves.
The bread is at the center of the Christian Eucharist; it is "sacramental bread", "singing bread", or "angel's bread". Jesus defines himself as "the bread of life" (John 6:35). Divine "grace" is called "the bread of the strong" and preaching, religious teaching, "the bread of the word of God". In Hebrew, Bethlehem means "house of bread", and Jesus was born in a city called Bread.
Bakers encounter a number of occupational hazards. OOH reports that bakeries, "especially large manufacturing facilities, are filled with potential dangers such as hot ovens, mixing machines, and dough cutters. As a result, bakers have a higher rate of injuries and illnesses than the national average. Although their work is generally safe, bakers may endure back strains caused by lifting or moving heavy bags of flour or other products. Other common risks include cuts, scrapes, and burns. To reduce these risks, bakers often wear back supports, , and gloves."
Baker's asthma—commonly caused by flour and the microbial (often Aspergillus-derived) used to facilitate breadmaking—is one of the common causes of occupational asthma worldwide.Paul Cullinan, Torben Sigsgaard & Rolf Merget, "Occupational Asmtha in the Baking Industry" in Asthma in the Workplace (eds. Jean-Luc Malo, Moira Chan-Yeung & David I. Bernstein: 4th ed., CRC Press, 2013), p. 213.
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