Bread is one of the most simple food stuffs within our diet and we take it for granted. If you're reading this from the UK then your idea of bread will be the horrible mass produced plastic wrapped loaf of sliced white bread that is full of additives and preservatives.

Even if you don't buy the packet sliced white loaf the chances are that you buy your bread from a supermarket but go for the more over priced mass produced speciality breads that British super amrkets now sell. Very few people in the UK now buy their daily bread from a baker and because of this the village or town bakeries are closing down. If you are lucky enough to have a small bakery near you ensure that you support it, I assure you that the produce that you buy from there will be infinitely better than that of a super market.

Bread has had a bad press over the last few years, many people now see eating bread as one of the slimming deadly sins, but if you chose the correct bread, made using un-bleached white flour, yeast, water, sugar and salt or even the wholemeal version, and ensure that you don't eat too much of it you'll be fine. Good fresh wholesome bread is a lot better for you than many food stuffs that people substitute into their diet.

Bread is the most widely used staple of all, but the home-baked variety is a rare commodity. Making bread is much simpler than you might imagine and is much more an enjoyable process than buying it in the super market.
Bread fills me with excitement and anticipation and for these reasons I want to talk about it and share it with everyone I meet.

Bread is a simple pleasure. In Italy no table is laid without it and no meal complete. Made well with good basic ingredients and left to rise for the correct length of time, bread is highly nutritious; a complex carbohydrate that helps to release energy more slowly through our blood system. Bread and extra virgin olive oil have to be one of life's greatest food combinations.

Well taught, all the various stages of bread making are accessible and easy. Any good cook book with a baking section will teach you the basics of bread baking, and as long as you've got the correct ingredients, equipment and an oven you should be able to get pretty decent results. Italian bread is some of the tastiest that there is, and there is a wealth of different style of bread as well. Focaccia is very popular in Italy and is now getting more popular abroad.

Focaccia is a flat oven-baked Italian bread, which may be topped with onions, herbs or other foodstuffs, Focaccia was a bread baked in the hearth of the fire, hence the name with derives from the Latin for fire place or centre. Focaccia is usually seasoned with olive oil and herbs and topped with cheese, outside of Italy it is mainly used as a sandwich bread. Finally, if any of you have ever had a real Italian pizza in Italy at a traditional pizzeria then you'll have tasted the deliciously crisp bread base of the pizza. Simply the best bread on the planet.