Barley bread

“ On a sheet of iron laid upon the open hearth the last loaves of barley-bread were baking under a crock, and Vassilissa Beggoe was preserving the leaven for next week's breadmaking by the simple process of placing it in a saucer of water, where it would mildew in peace. ”

“ Starch gives little nourishment, like washed bread. Barley is of a cold nature and detergent: when boiled like a ptisan it humectates; but when toasted, as in polenta, it dries. Polenta in summer, drunk with water before the bath, quenches thirst. Barley-bread is dry and of little nourishment. The pudding (maza) is of more difficult digestion, and more flatulent than barley-bread, and when it receives a little honey is laxative. Oats are heating and of little nourishment. Millet and panic are cold and dry, contain little nourishment, and bind the bowels. ”

“ And unless Graham dough is of the proper consistency, the bread when baked will be moist, sticky and insipid, or dry, rough and unpalatable. The correct proportions are a little more than two measures of Graham flour to one measure of “wetting.”
Oat, Corn and Barley Bread.—Fermented bread can be made of oat, corn, or barley meal, or flour; care being taken to add wetting in proportion to the demands of the grain. When corn or oat meal is used, boiling water should be poured upon it and it be permitted to swell for at least an hour before the yeast is added. ”

“ Rye bread comes next to wheaten bread; it is not so rich in gluten, but is said to keep fresh longer, and to possess some laxative qualities.
Barley bread, Indian-corn bread, etc., made from barley, maize, oats, rice, potatoes, etc., "rise badly," because the grains in question contain but little gluten, so that the bread is heavy, close in texture, and difficult of digestion; in fact, wheat flour has to be added before panification can take place. In countries where wheat is scarce and maize abundant, the people make the latter a chief article of sustenance, prepared in different forms. ”

“ Come thither, and I warrant you that you shall see brown bread upon the board; if it be of wheat and rye mingled together, it is a great matter, and bread most highly commended, but most commonly they eat barley bread, or rye mingled with peasen or such-like coarse grain, which is doubtless of small price, and there is no other bread allowed except it be at their own board; and in like manner for their meat, it is well known that necks and points of beef is their ordinary fare ”

“ All except the heart or best part of the grain is thus taken away. The barley, in this state, when boiled, forms a nutritive food; and a decoction of it, properly flavoured with acid, is said to be one of the best beverages that can be adopted in acute diseases. The making of pearl barley is a German invention. In Scotland the lower classes make it by means of hand-mills; and many persons are satisfied with merely ridding the grain of its husks by stamping it in mortars.
Barley-meal is occasionally made into bread by the poor; and it is likewise used for the fattening of poultry and swine. ”

“ The early settlers of New England also largely used it for bread making. At the present day only a very insignificant quantity of barley is used for food purposes in this country, and most of this in the unground state.
Barley is less nutritious than wheat, and to many people is less agreeable in flavor. It is likewise somewhat inferior in point of digestibility. Its starch cells being less soluble, they offer more resistance to the gastric juice. ”

“ 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. ”

“ In champaign countries much rye and barley bread is eaten, but especially where wheat is scant and geson. As for the difference that it is between the summer and winter wheat, most husbandmen know it not, sith they are neither acquainted with summer wheat nor winter barley ”

“ Barley has been cultivated from the most ancient times; in fact, its cultivation can be traced as far back as man's occupations have been recorded. The grain of this cereal has also played an important part in the advancement of man, for, according to history, some of the present weights and measures originated from it. Thus, the Troy weight grain is said to have been first fixed by finding the average weight of a barley grain, and the inch of linear measure, by placing three grains of barley end to end. ”

“ Their native bread is made of oats, or barley. Of oatmeal they spread very thin cakes, coarse and hard, to which unaccustomed palates are not easily reconciled. The barley cakes are thicker and softer; I began to eat them without unwillingness; the blackness of their colour raises some dislike, but the taste is not disagreeable. In most houses there is wheat flower, with which we were sure to be treated, if we staid long enough to have it kneaded and baked. As neither yeast nor leaven are used among them, their bread of every kind is unfermented. They make only cakes, and never mould a loaf. ”

“ Barley is older than wheat, and is more productive but less valuable. It is now largely grown in the basin of the Mediterranean as a food for horses, instead of oats which, like rye, is a cereal not well suited to the Mediterranean climate. As a bread plant it was early replaced in the Mediterranean by wheat, but it is still used to make bread in some other parts of Europe, e. g. in Scandinavia, and is also of importance outside the Mediterranean as the origin of fermented beverages. ”

“ Now, rye is seldom more than two-thirds the price of wheat, and barley is seldom more than half the price of wheat. Half rye and half wheat, taking out a little more of the offal, make very good bread. Half wheat, a quarter rye and a quarter barley, nay, one-third of each, make bread that I could be very well content to live upon all my lifetime; and, even barley alone, if the barley be good, and none but the finest flour taken out of it, has in it, measure for measure, ten times the nutrition of potatoes. ”

“ There is no country where trees bud or flowers bloom, that I will not cry in before the year goes round. Give me another slice of barley bread to keep me on my journey, and tell me [Pg 22] what present I shall bring you at the twelve-month's end.'
"Scrub would have been angry with his brother for cutting so large a slice, their store of barley-meal being low ”

“ This grain is less nutritious and less digestible than wheat, but contains more sugar and more of the phosphates, and is also cooling. It will not make good bread, but is sometimes used for the purpose, mixed with wheaten flour.
Pearl Barley is the whole grain freed from its hulls like rice. It is used in soups, etc., and is sold by all grocers. In the best qualities the grains are large and well rounded. It is sold in bulk and in pound packages.
Oatmeal. Oats are substantial, nutritious and wholesome, being rich in gluten and fat. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Barley, rye, and some other grains would be very useful for bread if it were not that they lack sufficient gluten to entangle enough carbonic acid to render bread made from them light.
Good bread cannot be made without good flour. There are two kinds usually to be found in market, namely bread flour, and pastry flour. ”

“ Flour or meal produced from barley, maize, or rice, cannot be employed satisfactorily for the manufacture of bread unless a considerable portion of wheat flour is added, and in countries where these grains are the staple food of the people they are as often eaten as porridge or mash as in the form of bread.
On examining a grain of corn from any of the numerous cereals used in the preparation of flour, such as wheat, rye, barley, etc., it will be found to consist of the husk, or exterior covering, which is generally of a dark colour, and the inner part, which is more or less white. ”

“ As the average price of wheat at the same date was 14s. a quarter, or about 112s. in our money, fresh meat was comparatively much cheaper, and it is no wonder that even the farmer could not afford wheaten bread regularly. Moryson, writing in Elizabeth's reign, says 'Englishmen eate barley and rye brown bread, and prefer it to white as abiding longer in the stomeck and not so soon digested'. ”

“ Since that time half a century has passed, and whilst the agricultural produce in France has tripled in value, the labourers who produce it continue, from custom and necessity, to eat a detestable bread made from rye, barley, or peas and potatoes; and, to make the matter still worse, it is badly baked, without yeast, and being sometimes kept for weeks, it becomes covered with mould, and altogether presents an appearance enough to turn the stomach of a savage. ”

“ The miller and the baker divide and subdivide; and instead of flour for bread, and the bran that remained, according to ancient practice, whereby the beggar as 145well as the prince was pleased, bread became a mystery, and we no longer knew what we were eating.”
“Our misfortune, in regard to bread, is, that we eat it too fine; we decline the use of barley in bread, having hardly enough for beer. Oats and pease are rejected: at length we reject even wheaten flour,—unless we are supplied with the finest parts only!—What will befall us in the end?” ”

“ The ground grain does not make a satisfactory bread: for, although it contains a fairly large amount of proteid matter, it is deficient in gluten. Combined with cow's milk, barley is frequently used for feeding infants, its carbohydrates and mineral matter rendering it very wholesome. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Barley, rye and oats may be grown much farther north, but are less digestible. Oatmeal cannot be made into bread, rye bread is rapidly being displaced by wheat, and barley has almost entirely fallen into disuse, except for the purposes of the brewer and distiller. ”

“ Put some sugar in a pan with water and place it on the fire to boil; when it is at the feather add a little lemon juice and continue boiling to the caramel; when done add a few drops of essence of lemon. Pour it on a marble slab previously oiled, [76] cut into strips. When nearly cold take the strips in your fingers and twist them, and when quite cold put them into tin boxes and keep them closed down. The reason that barley sugar is so named is that it was originally made with a decoction of barley. ”

“ BARLEY PORRIDGE.
Take 3 tablespoonfuls of Allinson's barley, mix smoothly with 1/2 pint of cold water, add 1/2 pint of boiling milk, and boil 5 to 10 minutes. Pour on shallow plates to cool, then eat with Allinson wholemeal bread, biscuits, rusks, or toast, or stewed fruits. ”

“ Barley was much more universally used in ancient times than it is now. It is valuable as being able to bear great extremes of temperature. In hot countries two crops are grown in one year. On the Continent it is still much used for bread, but we prefer it as malt. ”

“ The Laplanders, who have no corn of their own, make a kind of bread of the inner soft bark of a pine tree, either mixed with the coarsest barley meal, or with dried fish beaten into powder. The bark is collected when the sap is rising, it is afterwards dried in the sun, or over a slow 48fire, and then mixed with the coarsest barley meal, or dried fish beaten into powder. The poorer people grind the chaff, and even some of the straw along with the barley. ”

“ The plenty of good wheaten bread that now is found among all ranks of people in the south, instead of that miserable sort which used, in old days, to be made of barley or beans, may contribute not a little to the sweetening their blood and correcting their juices. ”

“ Take four bushels of wheat ground to form one sort of flour, extracting only a very small quantity of the coarser bran. [6] Add to it three bushels and a half of barley flour, mix up the flour into a dough in the usual manner, with salt, yeast, and warm water, (See page 97) , let it be divided into loaves, and put them into the oven made 112hotter than it would be for baking wheaten bread. Let them remain in the oven three hours and a half. In Yorkshire, bread made from a mixture of these grains is esteemed more wholesome to those who are used to it, than bread made from wheat alone. ”

“ The principal of these are wheat, oats, Indian corn, rice, rye, barley, buckwheat, millet, chestnuts, peas, beans, and lentils. They are prepared in various forms.
DIVISION I.—BREAD.
The true idea of bread is that coarse or cracked and unbolted meal, formed into a mass of dough by means of water, and immediately baked in loaves of greater or less thickness, according to the fancy.
Some use bolted meal; most raise bread by fermentation; many use salt; some saleratus, or carbonate of potash; and, in the country, many use milk instead of water to form the paste. ”