Short answers, pulled from the story.
Bread is a baked food made from water, flour, and often yeast. Common bread wheat is the most widely used grain because its high gluten content gives dough sponginess and elasticity. Bread can also be made from spelt, emmer, einkorn, kamut, rye, barley, maize, oats, sorghum, millet, and rice.
The oldest evidence of bread-making was found at a 14,500-year-old Natufian site in Jordan's northeastern desert. Even older evidence from 30,000 years ago in Europe and Australia shows starch residue on rocks used for pounding plants, suggesting a primitive flatbread cooked on flat stones over fire.
The Chorleywood bread process was developed in 1961. It uses intense mechanical working of the dough to dramatically reduce the fermentation period and the time needed to produce a loaf, and it is now widely used in large factories worldwide.
A study by the University of Hohenheim found that industrially produced bread typically has a high proportion of FODMAP carbohydrates because it rises for only about one hour. A rising time of four hours breaks down about 90 percent of the FODMAPs that cause discomfort, showing that baking technique, not grain type, determines tolerance.
Sourdough is leavened by a long fermentation using naturally occurring yeasts and lactobacilli, without any added commercial yeast. The lactobacilli produce lactic acid, giving sourdough its mildly sour taste, and longer ferments can also contain acetic acid, the main non-water component of vinegar.
Bread serves as a metaphor for basic necessities, as in a bread-winner or putting bread on the table. In English-speaking countries, both dough and bread are slang for money, and the Bolsheviks promised peace, land, and bread in Russia in 1917.
Acrylamide forms in starchy foods heated above 120 degrees Celsius and has been found in bread. It is neurotoxic, harmful to male reproduction, developmentally toxic, and carcinogenic, and more than 99 percent of the acrylamide in bread is found in the crust.