In England bread was so important that it helped to make the English language. The word “lady” comes from two old words that mean “loaf-maker,” and the word “lord” comes from two words meaning “loaf-keeper.” That is, the loaf of bread represented the food and the home. The lady made it, and the lord protected it.

When Captain John Smith landed on the shores of Virginia in 1607, he found the Indians growing corn and grinding it into meal, from which they made bread. All the work was done by the squaws, for the Indian braves, like the early cave men, had to attend to the hunting and fighting. Sometimes when their crops failed, they used roots for bread. It was, in fact, Indian corn that kept the colonists from starving, and one of the most important things that Captain John Smith did was to persuade the Indians to give the colonists enough corn to live on until supplies could come by ship from England.