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[[File:Martwa natura z ciambellami.JPG|thumb|upright=.6|Cristoforo Munari (1667–1720), ''Still life with a watermelon and ciambelle'']]
Another bread with a long history, which, this time for sure, is made in the shape of elongated rings, is the Middle Eastern ''ka'ak''. These breads get a mention in the Talmud,<ref>Balinska, ''op. cit.'', p. 7</ref> so they must have been known at least as eary early as the 6th century CE. Unlike the overly simple ''buccellatum'', made only of flour, salt and butter, ''ka'ak'' are made from leavened dough. What's interesting is that the leavening agent used here is not yeast, but fermented chickpea.<ref>{{Cyt
| tytuł = Food Composition Tables for the Near East
| url = https://books.google.de/books?id=YHvfetM9gcUC&pg=PA229
}}</ref> Generously sprinkled with sesame seeds before baking, ''ka'ak'' may be still purchased in the streets of Arab and Israeli cities.
Let's go back the Apennine Peninsula. It was in the port town ports of Apulia, a region of Puglia (pronounced ''{{small|POOL}}-yah'') in what is now southern Italy , that ''taralli'' were being boiled and baked as early as the 14th century. That's right, it's a kind of bread that is first boiled and only then baked. Why? Because when the starch on the surface of the dough comes into contact with boiling water, it gets gelatinized, giving the ''tarallo'' its shiny and crunchy crust. The stiffened crust also prevents the dough from rising further during baking, which helps keep the bread in shape. And this, in turn, means that you can make bigger ring-shaped breads than you could without boiling them first.<ref>Balinska, ''op. cit.'', p. 2–6</ref> Clever, huh?
[[File:Ponti, Carlo (ca. 1823-1893) - Venditore.jpg|thumb|left|upright=.5|A boy peddling ''ciambelle'' in 19th-century Italy]]
Great, but what's the deal with the ring shape in the first place? Why not a ball or a disc, but a torus, which takes a great a lot more skill to form? Well, this shape has two advantages. First, a holey bread has only a slightly smaller volume with a much larger surface than a whole bread of comparable size (the proof by calculating the surface areas and volumes of a torus and an ellipsoid is left as an exercise for the Reader). And a larger surface area allows the heat to spread more evenly inside the dough during the thermal treatment (boiling or baking). Secondly, a holey bread is easier to transport, especially for a street vendor who can just put his (somehow it's usually been men) ''taralli'' on a string or a stick and peddle them in the street. And the customers could even wear their ''tarallo'' like a bracelet, if they didn't eat it right away.
Dry ''taralli'' were used in a similar way as the ancient ''buccellata'' in that they could be stored for up to half a year and then eaten after being dunked in wine for softening. Were these toroidal ''taralli'' inspired by the Arab ''ka'ak'', brought by Levantine sailors to the port ports of PugliaApulia? Quite possibly, but we don't know that for sure. Whatever the case, soon after the ''taralli'' had appeared in southern Italy, similar breads were being made in the north. They bore a plethora of regional names, including ''"bricuocoli", "ciaramilie", "pane del marinaio", "mescuotte", "ciambelle", "ciambelloni", "braciatelle", "brazzatelle"'' and ''"brasadèle"''<ref>{{Cyt
| tytuł = The Oxford Companion to Italian Food
| nazwisko r = Riley