Cereals were one of the basic foodstuffs in Roman times. At first, wheat was eaten when it was still tender on the ear. Later, the grain was turned into flour. This flour, not only from corn and barley, but also from other pulses, was mixed with water to make puls or pulmentum, the historic food of the Romans.

The first evidence we have of the transformation of wheat into flour dates back more than eighteen thousand years, although this primitive bread was overcooked, unfermented and in the form of a biscuit.

The discovery of fermentation is attributed to the Egyptians who, around 2600 BC, made bread with similar methods to our own.

Bread was not immediately accepted as part of the Roman diet as it was considered alien. Some, such as Cato the Elder, thought it was the cause of decadence and decline in the ancient ways. Later, however, it became the basic element in the diet, as is shown by the expression panem et circenses (bread and games), referring to the maximum aspirations of the Roman plebs.

Thanks to the Greek and Latin authors, we know all about how bread was made in ancient times. There are also various carved reliefs illustrating the process. Once ground and dried, the flour was sieved. It was then mixed with a little yeast, water and salt, kneaded, shaped and placed in the oven to bake. There were many different types of bread, depending on the manufacturing method, the purpose for which it was being made and the type and quality of the flour used.

Originally, bread was made in the home (by women or slaves). Later, from the 5th century BC, there were bakers in the towns, although home bread making never died out completely. Some wealthy households had slave-bakers during the Republic and Empire periods, although as a rule bread was bought at the pistrinum, or professional baker's. In the ancient bakeries the baker ground his own flour. This explains the presence of mills in the bakeries. For many years, the system used for milling the grain was to crush it between two flat or rounded stones. Later, mortars were used. But mills were used from early times. The ancient mill consisted of a fixed part, known as the meta, and a moving part, the catillus. They were worked either by arm-power or by animal traction, using donkeys (mola asinaria) or horses (mola iumentaria). There were also water-powered mills.