Breadline

“ 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. ”

“ FORTY or fifty years ago not much wheaten bread was used by the common people in the North of Scotland. Oatmeal—and barley-meal cakes—formed the chief bread. When they were spoken of, they were not called "oatcake," or "oat-cakes," but "brehd," [1] "ait-brehd," or "behr-brehd," or "ait-breed," "bere-breed," according to the pronunciation of the district, while wheaten bread went by the name of "fite brehd," or "fite breed," i.e. white bread, and a slice of such went by the name of "a sheeve o' loaf," or "a sheeve o' fite brehd." ”

“ 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. ”

“ The best bread is made with the best wheat-flour, all that can be said by anybody to the contrary notwithstanding. Rye, corn, and barley bread are excellent, and may be partaken of by those whose constitution, occupation, etc., allow it. In every thing, bread included, the people, or what may be called "the million," are wiser than soi-disant philosophers; and if oat-meal or Indian-meal were better than wheat-flour, they would be dearer. To describe or discuss the innumerable methods of making bread would require several volumes. ”

“ She was a hard-working woman, and came over to my house once a week for some years to bake the bread, made from my own wheat ground at the village mill. It was somewhat dark in colour, owing to the most nutritious parts of the grain being retained in the flour, but it was deliciously sweet and kept fresh for the whole week. I only wish everyone could enjoy the same sort; the modern bread is poor stuff by comparison, and its lack of nutritive value is undoubtedly the cause of much of the poor physique of our rural and urban population at the present time. ”

“ In almost every camp that is represented are men depicted as preparing bread against the return of the, of course, victorious soldiery: we see them mealing the corn, kneading the dough, making it into flat, round cakes, and, finally, piling these up in large heaps ready for the hungry warriors. ”

“ The great advantage of eating pure and genuine bread must be obvious; but bread is often spoiled to please the eye. I have elsewhere [1] shewn, that in the making of bread, more especially in London, various ingredients are occasionally mingled with the dough. The baker is obliged to suit the caprice of his customers, to have his bread light and porous, and of a pure white colour. It is impossible to produce this sort of bread from flour alone, unless it be of the finest quality. ”

“ Dauglish’s bread machinery at work, contained workshops as spacious as those of a cotton mill, contrasting most favourably with the miserable, fetid dens in which our metropolitan bread is at present made. The air is pure, the temperature moderate, and the time occupied in the manufacture of the loaf so short (an hour and a half) , that the operatives are entirely exempt from the fearful amount of illness and mortality which exists among those employed by low-priced bakers. ”

“ Unfortunately, the call for bread will always be in proportion to the scarcity of it, from the natural disposition of some to make grievances, and complaints, and of others to provoke tumult, and riot.
"To make good bread. Take a pottle of fine oatmeal, and lay it in water, to steep, all night: next morning, it will appear (if too much water is not put to it) like hasty pudding. This break into several parts of a peck and a half of barley-meal, to which add warm water, and yeast, and knead it into dough, as all wheat meal is commonly done: then mould it into loaves, and bake them. ”

“ You ought to taste the miserable bread made from barley in order to find our bread good—or, I might better say, in order to find it an exquisite dainty even without butter or jam. Barley bread is full of long bristles that stick in the throat; it contains more bran than flour; it is bitter, stodgy, and of a disagreeable odor. Oh, what sorry stuff! And yet many have to be content with it, and are only glad if they can get enough of it.
Barley
“In the greater part of the world wheat, widely distributed by commerce, furnishes bread only for the tables of the rich. ”

“ In general all forms of bread may be divided into two great classes, leavened and unleavened. By far, the greater quantity of bread consumed belongs to the former class. Unleavened bread is used chiefly for certain religious festivals, in the form of biscuits or in certain varieties of Indian corn bread such as hoe cake, johnnie cake, etc. Of the leavened bread there are two distinct classes, namely, bread which is baked and eaten cold and bread which is consumed hot from the oven. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It is not a pleasant thing to think or write about, but it is a stubborn fact, that upon thousands of tables, in otherwise comfortable [257] homes, good bread is an unknown phenomenon. I say phenomenon, because it would indeed be a marvellous estrangement of cause and effect were indifferent flour, unskillfully mixed with flat yeast, badly risen and negligently baked, to result in that pride of the notable housekeeper—light, sweet, wholesome bread. ”

“ In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries in France, noblemen, the middle-class, and shopkeepers did not eat much white bread, and their best was equal to the ‘household bread’ of to-day, whilst whitey-brown, brown, and bran breads were to be found on their tables. The common folk fed on bread made of78 barley, rye, maslin, a mixture of wheat and rye, brown bread, black bread, and enormous pasties, of which the thick crust was composed of rye, bran, and flour mixed together. ”

“ But in practice this does not occur, for practically the whole of the bread which is sold in this country is sold from the baker’s cart, which delivers bread at the houses of customers, and not over the counter. Customers obviously cannot be expected to wait at their doors whilst the man in the cart weighs each loaf he is delivering to them. In actual practice therefore the bread acts, as they are called, are really a dead letter, and bread is sold by the loaf and not by weight, though it must be 106 remembered that the loaf has the reputed weight of two pounds. ”

“ This adds six pounds of bread to the bushel, or nearly another quartern loaf and a half, making nearly fifteen quartern loaves out of the bushel of wheat. The finest flour is by no means the most wholesome; and, at any rate, there is more nutritious matter in a pound of household bread than in a pound of baker’s bread. Besides this, rye, and even barley, especially when mixed with wheat, make very good bread. Few people upon the face of the earth live better than the Long Islanders. Yet nine families out of ten seldom eat wheaten-bread. Rye is the flour that they principally make use of. ”

“ This scarcity and dearness of bread is a thing never felt in the present day, when lumps of the best white bread are flung in heaps in the squares and streets of London, and disdained even by tramps and beggars, and when boys in the North Country go round with sacks begging bits of bread which they afterwards use for feeding ponies or horses! ”

“ In England the staff of life seems to reach the dining-room table by invisible means, so seldom does one see bread carried through the streets, but among the French—a nation of bread-eaters—long loaves as well as circular ones are to be seen tucked under the arm of almost every tenth person one meets. The working classes seem to be continually buying bread freshly baked, and one loaf at a time! ”

“ The law with English breads and cakes of whatever nature appears to be to work in all the flour the dough can hold, and pudding must be a slab, and bread compact and dense to satisfy the English palate. Dripping is the substitute for butter, and the children eat the slice of bread and dripping contentedly. Fat of any sort is in demand, the piercing rawness of an English winter seeming to call for heating food no less than that of the Esquimaux for its rations of blubber and tallow. ”

“ 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? ”

“ 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 ”

“ The little men scampered this way and that, behind the oven and into the ash heap, and, in a few seconds, all had disappeared.
“‘Now,’ said the King of the Clinkers, ‘I want to tell you that I’ve had a splendid time, and I’m very much obliged to you for it. I have enjoyed myself, and I want to make some returns for it. Pretty soon the bread wagons will be at the door clamoring for bread. You will wake the baker and his wife. When they find all their flour made into nice bread they will be very much surprised. ”

“ The191 baker of brown bread not to make white bread and the converse. A baker shall not buy corn to sell it again. A baker shall not sell his flour to cooks for making pastry. Once a month every baker’s bread shall be examined.
If a baker be found to be selling bread under weight he is to be placed on a hurdle with the faulty loaf hanging from his neck and dragged through the “great streets where there may be most people assembled and through the great streets which are the most dirty.” For a second offence he is to be dragged in like manner and set in pillory. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The best bread-makers I have ever known, watch over their bread troughs while their dough is rising, and over their ovens while it is baking, with about as much care and attention as a mother watches over the cradle of her sick child.
Dough made of wheat meal requires a hotter oven than that made of fine flour; and it needs to remain in the oven longer. Indeed, it is a general fault of bread of every description, made in this country, 98that it is not sufficiently baked. Multitudes eat their bread hot and smoking from the oven in a half-cooked state ”

“ But, unfortunately, it interferes with the enjoyment of the pipe, and hence is not in much favor with woodsmen.
To make good bread it is not necessary to take either yeast cakes or mixing pan into the wilderness. An old hand thinks himself rich with a few pounds of flour in his sack, and soon has a batch of bread baking that would turn many a housewife green with envy. ”

“ In commanding the bakers to make such a quantity of bread, means ought to have been afforded for the supply of the material of which it was to be made. In seasons of scarcity, there is always an endeavour to make into bread various kinds of aliment, which, under ordinary circumstances, are consumed under other forms. ”

“ Some persons prepare bread for the oven by simply mixing it in the mass, without kneading, pouring it into pans, and suffering it to rise there. The air-cells in bread thus prepared are coarse and uneven; the bread is as inferior in delicacy and nicety to that which is well kneaded as a raw servant to a perfectly educated and refined lady. The process of kneading seems to impart an evenness to the minute air-cells, a fineness of texture, and a tenderness and pliability to the whole substance, that can be gained in no other way. ”

“ The term “Bread” when used alone is understood in this country to apply to bread made from wheat flour or some form of wheat. If made from other cereals a prefix is used to distinguish this fact, as Indian corn bread, rye bread, etc. The term bread includes also the materials which are used necessarily therewith in the ordinary process of baking. Thus, the term bread would apply to a loaf which contains not only the wheat flour as the base and chief part of its mass but also the yeast or other leavening agent employed, together with salt, lard, or butter used in its preparation. ”