Our Daily Bread, Podcasts

Water and Power Our Daily Bread 16

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 6:34 — 5.4MB)

Subscribe: Google Podcasts | Spotify | Android | RSS | More

The rotary quern was perhaps the first labour-saving device. Using water power, rather than muscles, to turn the millstone made it even more efficient. Without watermills, it is doubtful whether ancient Romans could have enjoyed their bread and circuses. Because they require capital investment and skilled workers, watermills also set the trend for concentration in the food industry.

Like it? You can support the show directly or via Patreon.

You might also like:

  1. Long live the Carolina African Runner Who cares whether it really is the “ur-peanut” of the American South Is the Carolina Runner No.4 peanut "the first peanut cultivated in North America" and does it matter anyway? ...
  2. Industrial strength craft beer What matters is not how little beer you make, but how carefully you make your beer....
  3. How the Brits became a nation of tea drinkers Coffee leaf rust in Ceylon had very little to do with it Persuading people to drink tea from the subcontinent more or less created the modern propaganda machine...
  4. Food in prison Porridge as metonymy "Food is essentially the sentence," says Clair Woods-Brown....

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *