A breadbox (chiefly American) or a breadbin (chiefly British) is a container for storing

bread Bread is a baked food product made from water, flour, and often yeast. It is a staple food across the world, particularly in Europe and the Middle East. Throughout recorded history and around the world, it has been an important part of many cu ...

and other baked goods to keep them fresh. They were a more common household kitchen item until bread started being made commercially with food

preservative A preservative is a substance or a chemical that is added to products such as food products, beverages, pharmaceutical drugs, paints, biological samples, cosmetics, wood, and many other products to prevent decomposition by microbial growth or ...

s and wrapped in plastic. Breadboxes are still used by many people to store commercially purchased bread, but are used more especially by people who bake bread at home. They are usually made of metal, wood or sometimes pottery (pottery breadboxes are also called bread crocks). Old breadboxes can be collectible

antiques An antique () is an item perceived as having value because of its aesthetic or historical significance, and often defined as at least 100 years old (or some other limit), although the term is often used loosely to describe any object that i ...

. Breadboxes are most commonly big enough to fit one or two average size loaves of bread—up to about 16 inches wide by 8 to 9 inches high and deep (40 cm × 20 cm × 20 cm).

Working theory

Stale bread Staling, or "going stale", is a chemical and physical process in bread and similar foods that reduces their palatability. Stale bread is dry and hard, making it less suitable for different culinary uses than fresh bread. Countermeasures and desta ...

is colloquially called "dry", but drying and staling are distinct processes. Stale bread can weigh the same as "fresh" bread, indicating almost no loss of water; conversely, bread can be dried out without going stale. Staling is a process of

retrogradation Retrogradation is the landward change in position of the front of a river delta with time. This occurs when the mass balance of sediment into the delta is such that the volume of incoming sediment is less than the volume of the delta that is los ...

, in which the starch transposes to a crystalline form in the presence of the water contained within the bread itself. The process speeds up at cooler temperatures, such as under

refrigeration Refrigeration is any of various types of cooling of a space, substance, or system to lower and/or maintain its temperature below the ambient one (while the removed heat is ejected to a place of higher temperature).IIR International Dictionary of ...

, and thus bread stored at room temperature remains fresher for longer periods than refrigerated bread. Frozen bread, however, traps the moisture as ice, and prevents the staling process.Freeze, Don’t Refrigerate Your Bread
Heat Keeper Common. August 2007 Breadboxes are thus designed to: *keep their contents at room temperature, prolonging edible storage time; *have a lid loose enough to allow airflow, reducing

condensation Condensation is the change of the state of matter from the gas phase into the liquid phase, and is the reverse of vaporization. The word most often refers to the water cycle. It can also be defined as the change in the state of water vapor ...

, which helps to prevent the formation of

mold A mold () or mould () is one of the structures that certain fungus, fungi can form. The dust-like, colored appearance of molds is due to the formation of Spore#Fungi, spores containing Secondary metabolite#Fungal secondary metabolites, fungal ...

; *have a lid tight enough to slow the drying process as well as to protect the contents from mice and all other pests, including ants and flies.

As a saying

The breadbox is commonly used to describe the size of other objects,learnersdictionary.com
Merriam-Webster. Retrieved 2009-05-10. a sense that has outlasted its routine use in the kitchen. The query "Is it bigger than a breadbox?" was popularized by

Steve Allen Stephen Valentine Patrick William Allen (December 26, 1921 – October 30, 2000) was an American television and radio personality, comedian, musician, composer, writer, and actor. In 1954, he achieved national fame as the co-creator and ...

on the American game show ''

What's My Line? ''What's My Line?'' is a Panel show, panel game show that originally ran in the United States, between 1950 and 1967, on CBS, originally in black and white and later in color, with subsequent American revivals. The game uses celebrity panelists ...

'', where it became a running gag after he initially asked the question in 1953. It remains a popular question in the parlor game '' 20 Questions''.

References

External links

* {{Wiktionary inline Food storage containers