Available in some form for thousands of years, bread is one of the most satisfying of foods: relaxing to make, irresistible to smell while baking, and enjoyable to eat at any time of day. Be it Baguette, Focaccia or Kavring rolls, it will act as a counterpoint to all the dishes of a meal. It can be stuffed with spiced fruits and nuts and served encased in pastry as Birnbrot, or, as the French Pompe, covered with anchovies and eaten with a rich soup. It can be packed with meat and cheese as Vasteddi Marilati, or filled with almond paste and served with milk as Semla. But perhaps best of all, it can be a meal in its own right, served piping hot with nothing more than a slab of butter. This book offers a delicious range of over 150 recipes for breads both exotic and more familiar, leavened, unleavened, savoury and sweet, as well as providing a guide to the history and folklore of bread through the continents. A practical section discusses the range of grains and flours available for bread-making and suggests techniques for making a basic dough alongside illustrated reference for forming different bread shapes. Specially-commissioned photographs of the finished recipes combine with evocative pictures of the regions covered, making this a visual record of the bread-producing areas of the world and a cookery book that will defy you not to try every one of its recipes.