Gluten-free and Paleo-inspired diets, which give wheat and many other grains and starches the cold shoulder, are increasingly popular in the West. But even as more people enjoy their dinner without the dinner roll, bread remains a beloved staple for billions of people around the world.

Because what’s a burger without a fluffy bun, pizza without a chewy, yeasty crust, or lox without bagels? (Here’s an authentic New York bagel recipe, by the way.) And it’s hard to imagine Germans ditching the pretzel or the French abandoning that enduring symbol of Gallic life, the baguette.

Indeed, in much of the world, bread has been an essential part of the daily diet for millennia. As it turns out, even those Paleolithic stone-agers ground and consumed