Trivia Time~
Since I seem to be on a baking jag I thought it might be kind of interesting to know how the term baker came about.
It seems that the word baker derives from the Old English baecestre, the feminine of which is baecere, both of which come from the word bacan, meaning to bake. A female baker was often called a baxter.
Other names, or words, that have been used to identify a baker have been backster, backmann, becker, furner or pistor.
Furner........ think of a furnace, this being a person who minds the furnace or the oven. Remember that once, especially when Old English was spoken, all ovens were gas fired, and not fired from natural gas or propane, but from fires that had to be tended and stoked in order to keep them going. Hence the furnace fire and the job of tending them evolved and the person doing that heated job ended up being called a furner.
Pistor is a lot less easy to figure out, but in Old English parlance, a pistor is someone who pounds the grains used in making bread, which would typically be a miller or baker.
"Than all the baxters will I ban
That mixes bread with dust and bran"
From: Ane Satyre of the Thrie Estaitis; 16th c.
(And since 16th century literature is not a specialty of mine, ya'll need to know this quote really came from Wordsmith.org)
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