Bread-making

“ Indeed, so much attention has been given to these matters that at present the three important processes relating to bread-making--the raising of wheat, the milling of flour, and the manufacture of yeast--are carefully and scientifically performed. These industries, together with the commercial manufacture of bread, occupy an important place in the business of practically all civilized nations.
4. Among people who are not highly civilized, bread forms the chief article of food and often almost the entire diet, even at the present time ”

“ So, immense bread-making factories were built. A standard price was put on wheat the Government wanted, which knocked the farmer rather hard and hundreds of employees were thrown out of the bakehouses. ”

“ Is it not absurd to talk of poverty, and yet pay a seventh or eighth part more than they need, to gratify a fantastic appetite? Had it not been from the custom of eating whiter bread than the whole flour of the wheat will make, should we have thus imposed on ourselves? Would the miller or baker employ all his art to make the bread as white as possible, and oblige us to pay for this artificial whiteness? They tell the consumer, the whiter it is, the finer ”

“ The manufacture of bread is carried on, as most of us know, in the cellars and kitchens of our London houses. What goes on in these confined spaces is not very pleasant to tell; but as the remedy lies in our own hands, it would be folly to allow a false delicacy to interfere with a thorough reformation of the whole method of bread-making as at present practised. ”

“ In the form of bread, it is sufficiently refined and sublimated to be appropriated and utilized for food, for shelter, for raiment, by the immortal spirit of man. The necessity for food, for clothing, for shelter, creates commerce, and commerce accomplishes results far more important than the production and distribution of the temporal necessities of human life. ”

“ The grinder sheds the corn gradually into the hole with one hand, and works the handle round with the other. The corn slides down the convexity of the lower stone, and by the motion of the upper, is ground in its passage." Such a primitive piece of machinery, it may safely be said, has entirely disappeared from this country.—In other parts of this work, we shall have opportunities of speaking of bread and bread-making, which, from its great and general use in the nourishment of mankind, has emphatically been called the "staff of life." ”

“ It would be difficult to ascertain at how early a period in the progress of society, mankind, in the preparation of wheat for bread-making, began to put asunder what God has joined together, and to concentrate the more purely nutrient properties, by separating the flour from the part commonly called the bran. The Bible speaks of fine flour or meal, as a portion of the meat offerings of the temple, but it is not probable this approached very near to the superfine flour of the present time. ”

“ Of all the artificially prepared articles of food which come upon our table, therefore, bread should be that one which, as a general fact, is uniformly preferred by our children and our household,—that one, the absence of which they would notice soonest, and feel the most,—that one which—however they may enjoy for a time the little varieties set before them—they would be most unwilling to dispense with—and which, if they were driven to the necessity, they would prefer to any other dish, as a single article of subsistence. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Thus we become dupes so far as to overlook the essential good properties of genuine bread, made of all the 138flour of the wheat, and likewise the difference in the price.”
“We are taught to favour a gross delusion at the suggestion of interested persons, against our own substantial welfare. ”

“ I have said that recently ground meal makes far sweeter and richer bread, than that which has been ground a considerable time; but as it is not convenient for many families to send to a mill as often as they would like to have fresh meal, they are obliged generally to use staler meal or flour than they would choose. Yet every family might easily be furnished with a modern patent hand-mill, constructed after the plan of a coffee mill, with which they could at all times, with great ease, grind their wheat, and rice, and corn, as they want it, for bread and other purposes. ”

“ These things being added to my desire of having a good quantity for store, and to secure a constant supply, I resolved not to taste any of this crop but to preserve it all for seed against the next season; and in the meantime to employ all my study and hours of working to accomplish this great work of providing myself with corn and bread.
It might be truly said, that now I worked for my bread. I believe few people have thought much upon the strange multitude of little things necessary in the providing, producing, curing, dressing, making, and finishing this one article of bread. ”

“ Domestics. Sour bread. An anecdote. Mrs. Van Winkle. Bad bread need not be made. How cake is made. Bread-making a drudgery. Excellent example of a mother. Eating bad bread. Importance of having good bread.
Who then shall make our bread? For after all that science in its utmost accuracy can do, in ascertaining principles and in laying down rules, there is little certainty that any one, who undertakes to make bread merely by rule, will be anything like uniformly successful. We may make a batch of bread according to certain rules, and it may prove excellent ”

“ In all probability, as we have already seen, the first generations of our species, who became acquainted with the art of making bread, continued for many centuries to employ all the substance of the grain, which they coarsely mashed in their rude mortars or mills. And even since 59mankind began, by artificial means, to separate the bran from the flour, and to make bread from the latter, the more close and discerning observers among physicians and philanthropists, have perceived and asserted, that bread made of fine flour is decidedly less wholesome than that made of the unbolted wheat meal. ”

“ Man’s need for bread, we saw, led to the establishment of commerce, and commerce did far more than secure to man food and clothing and shelter. It brought men together and discovered themselves to themselves. ”

“ But in regard to bread and bread-making, everything is very different; there is none of this early curiosity to learn how to make good bread. Young ladies do not on every occasion when they find excellent bread, carefully and minutely inquire how it was made, baked, &c., and write down the recipe;—but when a batch of bread is to be made for the family, they either leave it for Mother or some domestic to make, or go about it themselves as some irksome 114and disreputable piece of drudgery ”

“ When people are so situated that they can have things as they wish, they will also find that their bread is much richer, if the grain is ground but a short time before it is cooked.
The best way, therefore, is, for every family to raise or purchase a sufficient quantity of the best new wheat that can be produced by proper tillage in a good soil, and put that away in clean casks or bins, where it will be kept perfectly dry and sweet ”

“ It is chiefly to save the trouble of dressing any other kind of food, and that bread, from its portability and convenience of always being ready, has become the principal sustenance, but it is far from being the most economical method of using farinaceous grain. ”

“ The great advantage of eating pure and genuine bread must be obvious. Every part of the wheat, which may be called flour, was not only intended to be eaten by man, but it really makes the best bread. The delusion, however, by which so many persons are misled to think that even the whole flour is not good enough, obliges them to pay much dearer for their bread than they need, to gratify a perverted and fanciful appetite. ”

“ Every one may try by grinding and bolting his own grain, and baking his own bread, and the manufacturers of bread may find nearly as good account in bread of all the flour, which can be so easily ascertained ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Every occupation hath its mystery; and the professors are gratified in thinking themselves wiser than the rest of the world in their own way. Every professed cook of the first rate can melt down a large ham into the contents of half a pint. The confectioner uses bitter almonds, which are poisonous; the oilman colours his pickles with copper, to render them green; and the baker uses alum to whiten his bread, and make his flour imbibe the more water, by which he makes the more bread out of the same quantity of flour. ”

“ Among the number of substances used in domestic economy which are now very generally found sophisticated, may be distinguished,—tea, coffee, bread, beer, wine, spirituous liquors, salad oil, pepper, vinegar, mustard, cream, and other articles of subsistence. ”

“ Van Winkle, said I to her one day, while I was feasting on her delicious bread, tell me truly, is there either a miracle or mystery in this matter of bread-making, by which you are enabled to have such excellent bread upon your table at all times, while I rarely ever find bread equally good at any other table, and at ninety-nine tables in a hundred, I almost invariably find poor bread? Is it necessarily 110so? Is it not possible for people by any means to have good bread uniformly? ”

“ The very industry and busy activity of such a society, exposes it more and more to such impostures;—and by the division of labour which takes place, and confines every man to his own separate task, brings him into a complete dependence on the industry of others for a supply of the most necessary articles. ”

“ In Middle and Western Asia, and in Africa, bread, though made of different kinds of grain, is prepared with almost equal simplicity. In Scotland, Ireland, and indeed throughout Europe generally, barley, oats, rye, potatoes, peas, beans, chesnuts, and other farinaceous vegetables, constitute the bread-stuff of most of the laboring people, 16or peasantry. In the islands of the Pacific and Southern oceans, the bread of the inhabitants consists of the plantain, bananas, yams, bread-fruit, and other like vegetables, simply roasted, baked, or boiled. ”

“ The four course farmer produces not only wheat and barley, but beef 14 and mutton. The fluctuations in price of these products tend to compensate each other. When corn is cheap, meat may be dear, and vice versâ. Thus in the years about 1900, when corn was making very low prices, sheep sold well, and the profit on sheep-feeding enabled many four course farmers to weather the bad times. ”

“ Let no one therefore say she cannot always have good bread, until she can truly affirm that she has fairly made the experiment; that she has, in view of all its relations and bearings, accurately estimated the importance of the quality of her bread in regard to the welfare of her household, and, with a proper sense of her responsibilities as a wife and mother, has at all times felt that interest and exercised that care and attention which so important a duty demands, and without which it must ever be a mere accident whether her bread is good or bad. ”

“ The farmer will continue to be most eager to increase the number of his acres, and to extort from those acres the greatest amount of produce, with the least expense of tillage, and with little or no regard to the quality of that produce in relation to the physiological interests of man; while the people generally, are contented to gratify their depraved appetites on whatever comes before them, without pausing to inquire whether their indulgences are adapted to preserve or to destroy their health and life. ”

“ We shall all understand what we eat, and the trade will be familiar to us; we shall be so much happier as we become so much the more honest, and more healthy than we were before. Such is the 147serious light in which I see the subject before me. ”

“ And, although every country has its own favourite articles of food, and modes of preparing them, and there is perhaps no subject in regard to which local prejudices are so strong, yet there can be no reason why the farinaceous matter of cereal seeds should always be consumed in the state of bread; many of them are not less agreeable, and not less wholesome in other forms of food. ”

“ The lump of dough being placed exactly in the centre of a raised platform, the man sits upon the end of the machine, and literally rides up and down throughout its whole circular direction, till the dough is equally indented ”

“ 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?” ”