Anthropological Study of Bread Baking in Tehran and Its Evolution Over Time

Abstract

Wheat is the main ingredient of hundreds of different food, medicine and industrial products, and bread, as the most important product of wheat, has been recognized as a salubrious food such that each one of us may eat bread several times a day during our lives, and each time enjoy it more profoundly than ever before. Being known as a vital dietary product, bread has been investigated from various viewpoints. In the present sturdy, attempts are made to investigate the evolution of bread baking process in Tehran (District 1) from an anthropological perspective and explore its overt and covert functions and its role in everyday life of people. As for methodology, the present research falls within the category of ethnographic studies. In the present study, bread has been investigated from the viewpoint of functionalism school (due to its function in our everyday life) and the structuralism school (due to its impact on various structures in society). The findings of documentary studies as well as in-depth interviews and observations indicate that bread, as the staple food of Iranian people, can play a cultural and dogmatic role in many social, cultural and economic structures.

Keywords: Bread - Baker - classic bread - Industrial bread - Anthropology - Tehran

DOI: 10.7176/RHSS/12-14-01

Publication date:July 31^st 2022