In many of the details of the customs of the Latin Church, there are aspects that are simultaneously Jewish and Roman, though perhaps for different reasons. We use unleavened bread for the Sacrament of the Altar because of the connection with the Passover. But I also just heard something about the Roman legions.
A Roman army, as it is well known, marches "on its stomach," and what powers that stomach is the staff of life - bread. But Roman soldiers did not get bread and then put it in their supplies. They were given rations of grain which they ground up themselves and baked into bread as needed, to save space and weight vs. baked bread. From the description I heard it probably wasn't the fanciest or most refined of bread: it sounds like they ground up grain, added water, and baked it. Probably baking ovens weren't available, so I conjecture that they poured the flour-water batter onto flat rocks heated by the campfire. Even if this isn't exactly accurate, I rather suspect that the finished product was, if more crudely made, in essence the same product you see used on Sunday as the matter for the Sacrament.
The point is that I wonder if there isn't an accidental-on purpose parallel between the waybread that sustained the members of the Roman military on their journeys and the waybread that sustains the members of the Church militant on theirs.
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