Friedrich Christian Accum

“ So inextricably are we all immersed in this mighty labyrinth of fraud, that even the venders of poison themselves are forced, by a sort of retributive justice, to swallow it in their turn.—Thus the apothecary, who sells the poisonous ingredients to the brewer, chuckles over his roguery, and swallows his own drugs in his daily copious exhibitions of Brown stout. ”

“ It is the interest of every one to be honest, and say nothing contrary to his real sentiments, as it is the duty of those who have knowledge, to inform such as are ignorant. Those who have never eaten bread of all the flour in a pure state, with the native taste of wheat, and the moisture which it preserves, can know nothing of the comparative excellence of it with respect to the whitened city bread which they have been accustomed to eat all their lives. ”

“ Accum is certainly of a still more dreadful nature, and is even more widely ramified than that which excited so much horror in the worthy professor. It is a conspiracy of brewers, bakers, grocers, wine-merchants, confectioners, apothecaries, and cooks, against the lives of all and every one of his majesty’s liege subjects. ”

“ Accum, it appears, is one of those very good-natured friends, who is quite resolved not to allow us to be cheated and poisoned as our fathers were before us, and our children will be after us, without cackling to us of our danger, and opening our eyes to abysses of fraud and imposition, of the very existence of which we had until now the good fortune to be entirely ignorant. ”

“ The process of biscuit-baking for the British navy is as follows, and it is equally simple and ingenious. The meal, and every other article, being supplied with much certainty and simplicity, large lumps of dough, consisting merely of flour and water, are mixed up together; and as the quantity is so immense as to preclude, by any common process, a possibility of kneading it, a man manages, or, as it is termed, rides a machine, which is called a horse. ”

“ Wheat kept in damp storehouses affords scarcely any gluten, and hence, in proportion as the flour of wheat is altered and deteriorated, which happens, as it is known, when it is kept too much compressed, without being occasionally stirred up and aired in hot and close granaries; in a word, as it undergoes a chemical change, its property of making good bread is diminished; and chemical analysis shows the quantity of gluten has become lessened under such circumstances; and when it is greatly diminished the meal forms no longer a tenaceous ductile dough. ”

“ The principal improvement that has been made in the art of fabricating bread, consists in the substitution of yeast, (or the froth that rises to the surface during the fermentation of malt liquors,) instead of common flour dough, in a state of acescency, called leaven, to rise the bread dough, made of flour and water, before it is baked. This substance very materially improves the bread. Yeast makes the dough rise more effectually than ordinary leaven, and the bread thus produced is much lighter, and free from that sour taste which may often be perceived in bread raised with leaven ”

“ It does not take above a quarter of an hour more than the usual way of baking, for there is no time lost but that of adding the water at three or four times. The author of this method assures us that he constantly bakes in this way. In the morning, about six or seven o’clock, he puts the flour in the trough, and mixes up the spoonful of yeast with the warm water; in an hour’s time he adds more flour, in two hours, again more, and about noon makes up the dough, and about six in the evening it is put into the oven: he has always good bread. ”

“ There are, it appears, particular chemists who make it their sole employment to supply the unprincipled brewer of porter and ale with drugs, and other deleterious preparations; while others perform the same office to the wine and spirit merchant, as well as to the grocer and oilman—and these illicit pursuits have assumed all the order and method of a regular trade.
‘The eager and insatiable thirst for gain’ (Mr. Accum justly observes) , which seems to be a leading characteristic of the times, calls into action every human faculty, and gives an irresistible impulse to the power of invention ”

“ I have witnessed at a baker’s, who has the reputation for making excellent rolls, forty-eight pounds of dough moulded into one hundred (penny) rolls; they weighed, when drawn out of the oven, twenty-six pounds.
The bread called in this metropolis French rolls, and French bread, is made precisely in the same manner, namely, from common bread dough, but of a less stiff consistence; they are suffered to rise to a greater extent than dough intended for loaf-bread. ”

“ On the other hand, vegetable food being less stimulating is also less nourishing; besides, 10this kind of aliment is, upon the whole, of more difficult assimilation than the food derived from the animal kingdom. Hence it is, perhaps, that nature has provided a greater extent of digestive organs for animals wholly herbivorous. It is insufficient to raise the human system to all the strength and vigour of which it is susceptible. Flatulency of the stomach, muscular and nervous debility, and a long series of disorders, are not unfrequently the consequences of this too sparing diet. ”

“ With us, wheat is chiefly employed for the fabrication of bread. It is, in fact, the only grain of which light porous bread can be made; but rye and barley are also used as bread-corn. The farina of the other cerealia afford also a nutritive and wholesome bread; though their flour is not so susceptible of the panary fermentation, it cannot be made into the white texture of the wheaten loaf. The bread formed from them is consequently much inferior to that prepared from wheat. ”

“ THE ART OF MAKING BREAD. Nothing appears so easy at first sight, as to grind corn, or other farinaceous substances, to knead the flour with water into dough, and to convert it, by baking, into porous bread. But, simple as these operations may now appear to us, the art of making loaf-bread was by no means one of the earliest among human inventions. ”

“ But those fraudulent dealers conceal themselves under the fair show of a reputable traffic—they contrive in this manner to escape the infamy which justly belongs to them—and, under the disguise of wealth, credit, and character, to lurk in the bosom of society, wounding the hand that cherishes them, and scattering around them poison and death. ”

“ The following seeds are chiefly employed to make a species of bread:
Oats are used in the north of Europe for making a kind of bread, called oatmeal-cake, and particularly by the inhabitants of Scotland. Maize is frequently employed as bread-corn in North America.
Rice nourishes more human beings than all the other seeds together, used as food; and it is by many considered the most nutritive of all sorts of grain. A very ridiculous prejudice has existed with respect to rice, namely, that it is prejudicial to the sight, by causing diseases of the eye ”

“ Those who think it necessary to pay any attention to their health, at table, should take care that the quantity of bread, of meat, and of pudding, and of greens, should not compose, each of them, a meal, as if some only were thrown in to make weight, but carefully to observe that the sum of, altogether, do not exceed due 12bounds or incroach upon the first feeling of satiety.”
All the products of the vegetable kingdom, used as aliment, are not equally nutritious. ”

“ The adulteration of bread and bread flour is forbidden by law, as is obvious from the following acts of parliament:
150“No person shall put into any corn, [9] meal, or flour, which shall be ground, dressed, bolted, or manufactured for sale, any ingredient or mixture whatsoever, whereby the same may be adulterated, or shall sell any flour of one sort of grain as for the flour of another, but shall only sell the real genuine meal or flour of the grain the same shall import to be, under the penalty of five pounds for every such offence.” ”

“ Whilst immense tribes of creatures devour the amylaceous fecula in the grain, as nature produces it, man knows how to give it different forms, from the most simple boiling to the most complicated delicacies of the arts of the confectioner and pastry-cook. ”

“ Twelve serpents, with forked tongues and tails entwined, form a terrific wreath around; while the middle is occupied with a large cobweb, delineated with much attention to detail, in the centre of which a spider, full as large as a moderate sized hazel nut, and so frightful that more than one young lady of our acquaintance would think it necessary to scream at the sight of it, holds in its envenomed fangs an ill-fated fly, which is sinking under the loss of blood, and buzzing in the agonies of death. ”

“ He, poor man does the best he can, not to give a sweet wholesome aliment, but something which is white. He knows that bread made of a proper proportion of the wheat, not only differs in colour, but is moister at the end of eight 144days than his the third day; he likewise knows that it is sweeter, and has the native grateful flavour of the wheat, as the God of Nature hath given it, and not as it hath been adulterated. ”

“ The people of South Britain generally prefer bread made of the finest wheat flour, while those of the Northern countries eat a mixture of flour and oatmeal, or rye bread. The common people of Scotland also eat a mixed bread, but more frequently bread made of oatmeal only.
In Germany the common bread is made of rye. The flour of millet is made in France, Spain, and Italy, into wholesome and nourishing pastry and puddings. The American and West Indian labourer thinks no bread so strengthening as that which is made of Indian corn. ”

“ The quartern loaf produced from this quantity of flour weighs four pounds, five ounces and a half, and hence the dough loses, during baking, eleven ounces and a half.
The quantity of bread obtainable from the same quantity of flour is, however, much influenced by the manner in which the dough is fermented, and the skilful regulation of the heat employed for baking the bread.
A variation of temperature also makes a considerable difference to the baker’s profit or loss. In summer, a sack of flour will yield a quartern loaf more than in winter ”

“ In the manufacture of malt liquors, a wide field is opened for the operations of fraud. The immense quantity of the article consumed, presents an irresistible temptation to the unprincipled dealer; while the vegetable substances with which beer is adulterated, are in all cases difficult to be detected, and are frequently beyond the reach of chemical analysis. ”

“ Its nutritious qualities are fully ascertained by the experience of all Europe; it makes a considerable portion of the food of the poor; and in Ireland in particular, millions of people exist, who, from sufficient evidence, we are pretty certain live for years together almost wholly on this root and water, without any other seasoning than a little salt. It contains much amylaceous fecula, and when mixed with wheaten flour, may be formed into good and palatable bread. Other substances, besides the grains before mentioned, are in different parts of the world substituted for bread. ”

“ Among the offences which are peculiar to a refined and enlightened society, and owe their birth, indeed, to its science and refinement, are those skilful and dexterous adulterations of the manifold objects of its luxurious consumption, to which their value and variety, and the delicacy of their preparation, hold out so many temptations; while the very skill and knowledge which are requisite in their formation, furnish such facilities for their sophistication. ”

“ There can be no doubt that the same quantity of farinaceous matter made into bread might, in other forms, be used to a much greater advantage; for the great art of preparing good and wholesome food is to convert the alimentary matter into such a substance as to fill up the stomach and alimentary canal without overcharging it with more nutritive matter than is requisite for the support of the animal, and this may be done either by bread, or by converting 21the mealy substance of which it is composed into other forms, of which there is a great variety. ”

“ If they are satisfied that the bread is more pure than what they used to eat, and sufficiently fine, we may presume, if they are in their right minds, they will prefer it for domestic use. Every family of fourteen or fifteen persons, consuming at the rate of one pound each, in a day, pays near 16s. a week: if they can save 2s. 6d. or 1s. 6d. it is an object: to a poor man who spends 5s. in bread, if he can save eight or ten pence, it may purchase two or three pounds of animal substance towards making one feast in a week. ”

“ Suffice it to record, that our pickles are made green by copper; our vinegar rendered sharp by sulphuric acid; our cream composed of rice powder or arrow root in bad milk; our comfits mixed of sugar, starch, and clay, and coloured with preparations of copper and lead; our catsup often formed of the dregs of distilled vinegar with a decoction of the outer green husk of the walnut, and seasoned with all-spice, cayenne, pimento, onions, and common salt—or if founded on mushrooms, done with those in a putrefactive state remaining unsold at market ”

“ He can even subsist on every variety of these substances, under every mode of preparation, dried, preserved in salt, hardened in smoke, pickled in vegetable acids, &c.
The Author of Nature has so constructed our organs of digestion, that we can accommodate ourselves to every species of aliment; no kind of food injures us; we are capable of being habituated to every species, and of converting into nutriment almost every production of nature. ”

“ Rye is a grain whose cultivation is not much encouraged in this kingdom, but in the northern parts of Europe it is in very extensive use as a nourishing food for mankind. When made into bread alone, it is of a dark brown colour, and sweetish taste, and if eat by people unaccustomed to its use, it is found to have a laxative effect. In some parts of this kingdom, a mixture of rye and wheat is reckoned an 113excellent bread. ”

“ When in the preparation of bread a baking heat is applied to the flour dough, a complete change is produced in the constitution of the mass. The new substance of bread differs materially from flour, it no longer forms a tenacious mass with water, nor can starch and gluten be any more separated from it. ”