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Bread

BREAD is such an essential food in all countries that it may well be called the "Staff of Life." "Quando deest panis tunc est cibus omnis inanis: "" If Bread one needs in vain one feeds." Our Bread was evolved from the Old Eastern flat-cake, which was first leavened by the Egyptians, who probably taught the Greeks how to make it. From these latter the Romans acquired the knowledge, which in due course they passed on to the conquered Britons. It is named from the verbal root "bre owan," to brew, in allusion to the working of the yeast as leaven, thereby setting up alcoholic fermentation, with the production of some alcohol, and carbonic acid gas, the former of which slowly evaporates. The common household loaf of our daily Bread holds its per cent of alcohol.

Yeast, "levain " (Saccharomyces cerevisia), consists of fungi growing rapidly in fermenting wort, and setting up a similar fermentation in beers, bread, and other starchy matters into which they are introduced. Yeast consists of aggregations of minute cells, each cell constituting a distinct plant. It is employed for inducing fermentation in the making of malt liquors, and of distilled spirits, being also the agent in setting up the panary fermentation of Bread, whereby the Breadsubstance is rendered light, porous, and spongy by its aeration throughout. Beer yeast may be employed as an antiseptic stimulant. German yeast is the ordinary yeast, collected, drained, and pressed until nearly dry, in which condition it can be kept good for several months. Patent yeast is gathered from a wort of malt and hops, and treated in a similar way to German yeast. Leaven is called in Greek Zymee, a yeast, or ferment; and hence the term "zymotic" has come to express, and signify a class of diseases due to injurious ferments. There is now made a product, Levurine, as derived from the yeast of beer, possessing remarkable powers of destroying the microorganisms which underlie boils, carbuncles, and abscesses. It is a coarse, brown powder, with a characteristic yeasty odour, and is given in doses of from one to three teaspoonfuls, in water, or milk, or in cachets. Likewise a yeast poultice is antiseptic, and a spoonful of fresh yeast is a good remedy for "furunculosis," or an outbreak of boils. These are immediately due to penetration of the skin from without by the staphylococcus pyogenes, and other allied micro-organisms; so that external germicides are called for; but, probably, also, there is a predisposing condition of the whole system at the time (the urine being alkaline); therefore such medicinal remedies as fresh lemon-juice, and orange-juice, will be likewise helpfully alterative. There are certain objections to be made against using yeast for leavening Bread, because of chemical changes which follow, so that some of the flour's nourishing constituents are lost thereby. English baking powders are made exclusively of tartaric acid, with carbonate of soda, because this acid is cheaper than the superior cream of tartar (an article very commonly adulterated), which works more slowly in the baking, and leads to lighter bread; also arrowroot is mixed with the baking powder for keeping it dry, otherwise a premature chemical combination takes place between the acid and the alkali (particularly if at all meeting with damp) before the powder comes into use for baking purposes. The products of such combination in the dough are carbonic acid gas (which lightens the Bread,) and some tartrate of soda (which is slightly laxative).

Bread laws date back in England certainly to the time of King John, from whose reign until that of 'Edward I. (1280) a seal had to be affixed to every loaf in order that none save those of the prescribed size should be sold. Each baker had his own trade-mark, which he was called on to duly register, so that in any case of dispute it was quite easy to trace a loaf to its maker. There were several qualities of loaves always made, the pure white, or Simnel Bread, being then, as now, that of the "Quality-folk"; a Bread somewhat less luxurious was Wastel; next came "Puffe," and "Croquet"; then Trete (or brown Bread); and finally the black Bread of rye called "all sorts." In olden days Bread was never sold on the baker's premises: it had to be taken to the regular Bread market in paniers; and the usual way of obtaining it was through the regatresses, who purchased thirteen loaves at the market for the price of twelve, and then hawked them from door to door, their profit being the sale of the odd loaf in each “baker's dozen.” Brown Bread is wheaten Bread made from unbolten flour, so that the bran remains included. In the United States it is commonly called Graham Bread. Four or five hundred years ago this kind of Bread, which was then the staple food of the poorer classes, was known as trete, or "bis, being made of meal which was only once bolted; and to this day bran is called "trete" in the "North Countree." 66 "The farmer has brown Bread as fresh as day, And butter fragrant as the dew of May.

A widow has cold pye. Nurse gives you cake.

From gen'rous merchants ham, or sturgeon take."

The origin of wheat is hidden in obscurity; no other cereal will grow in so many climates as wheat, and none of the other cereals are so suitable for making Bread. Wheat grain contains everything necessary for supporting life. All the thirteen minerals, besides flesh-formers, body-warmers, and fatteners, are packed up in each little grain of the wheat; but, unfortunately, most of these nourishment factors are abstracted when the grain is ground by the miller; he leaves only the fine wheaten flour for making white Bread; nearly all the minerals are sifted out; and, in fact, little remains for the purpose of bread-making besides starch, which only fattens, but does not restore nerve, muscle, or bone. When "milled" the outermost coat of wheat yields bran, fine pollards, sharps, and middlings, the white flour within being derived solely from the endosperm. Ordinary Bread is usually made from a mixture of "whites," and "households." "Seconds" flour yields a Bread which is richer in proteid than the "whites," but the loaf is apt to be rather dark in colour. "Hovis" flour, prepared by using superheated steam, becomes richer in proteid, and fat, than ordinary flour.

The making of Bread from wheaten flour is only possible because this contains gluten, a proteid, or mixture of proteids, which has the peculiar property of becoming viscid when moistened with water. If the viscid mass composed thus is blown out with interspersed gas, it has sufficient coherence to remain in the form of a sponge, or honeycomb, instead of collapsing again, and allowing the gas to escape. Most other cereals, such as barley, rice, and oatmeal, do not contain gluten, but possess other forms of proteid which fail to become viscid when wetted, and consequently Bread cannot be made out of these. When Bread is kept it becomes dry from loss of its water, also it becomes stale by the shrinking, and coming together of the wall fibres. In the cooking of Bread a little caramel (or burnt sugar) is produced. New Bread, unless thoroughly chewed, and separated by mastication, offers greater resistance to action upon it by the stomach juices than stale Bread, owing to the tendency of the new, moist dough to clog in close masses. "He that will have a cake out of the wheat must needs tarry the grinding" (Troilus and Cressida). Wheat grain may be used whole as a food, being soaked in water until it swells up, and bursts, and then boiled in milk, with sugar, and other ingredients, thus making the old, and very nourishing mess, formerly called frumenty, which is seldom seen nowadays on the farmhouse table as of yore. A quaint quondam nursery rhyme, which has an occult significance, runs to this effect :- "Hark! Hark! the dogs do bark, The beggars are come to town; Some in jags, and some in rags, And one in a velvet gown.

Some give them white bread, Some give them brown; Some take a long pole, And drive them out of the town."

This disorderly episode must refer to the time when (as Alice learnt Through the Looking-glass) :- "The Lion and the Unicorn Were fighting for the crown."

Brown Bread in which raisins (stoned, and slightly chopped) are mixed, makes a nice loaf which is gently laxative. In the United States Graham Bread is made with milk, and white flour, for afternoon use, whilst for the morning Graham flour is employed, with Porto Rico molasses added. Boston brown Bread is manufactured from meal of yellow corn, Graham flour, salt, soda, sour milk, Porto Rico molasses, and butter; it is first boiled in a covered mould, and then baked uncovered so as to form a crust. Brown Bread and cherry pudding, is the English analogue of the thick German cherry cake, eaten cold. The bran which is included in wholemeal Bread contains a considerable amount of albuminoid nourishment, as "cerealin," this being allied to the solids of milk. It is a soluble nitrogenised ferment, which has a powerful action on starch, converting it rapidly into dextrin, and other similar bodies, thereby actually malting the bread. White wheaten Bread does not contain enough of this albuminoid matter to make it a complete human food; therefore it has been sometimes proposed, and practised, to retain the bran, grinding its silica, and cellulose into a very fine dust; but the realization of this method has proved a failure, and has properly met with the unqualified condemnation of all scientific men. We leave the bran to the animals, which have hitherto consumed 1t: "Some of them, like millers' horses, are not without evil effects from the magnesium phosphate, in the bran-forming calculi within their intestines." Moreover, the husk of whole meal, when used in making Bread, is less digestible than the inner white flour of wheat, whilst the undigested particles will irritate the lining coats of the intestines when passing along. "Therefore," says Dr. King Chambers, "white Bread is generally chosen in preference by shrewd working-men who wish to make their money spent in food go as far as it can." But it must be allowed that our fine white Breads of to-day, from which all the husk is excluded, and which do not contain the lime, are less favourable for building up the bony structures than was the Bread of rye and barley which was pretty general throughout several English counties early in the nineteenth دو century. "Triticumina bread is prepared from the entire wheat grain, including its cerealin; but Dr. Hutchison, who is the best modern authority on foods, and their nutrient values, declares his belief that no dietetic salvation can be obtained by the use of whole-meal Breads. "I am no believer," he says, "in the brown-bread fallacy."

The phosphatides of cereals contain phosphorus, and nitrogen; their compounds are essential constituents of all the nuclei (or central vitality) of cells in bodily structures, and therefore they are prominent ingredients in nerve tissues. The chief restorative phosphorus-principle is known as lecithin: it is procurable from the cereals, from eggs, apples, and other food sources. For some unhealthy conditions of the skin, with tetter, or ringworm (through a predisposition to develop its mycelium), sluggish sores, and other signs of defective nutrition, a diet consisting chiefly of whole-wheat meal, with fresh, ripe, sound fruit, and fresh, succulent vegetables, will prove curative; and at the same time some of the fixed oil expressed from the wheat germs will heal the sores by its outward application. Bread, mixed with sea-water, is now used in Philadelphia for some forms of indigestion. The finest wheat meal, when cooked with fruit, is famous against chronic constipation; but whole-wheat meal prepared as Bread by simple baking is less nutritious than fine flour similarly prepared. The roller mill has of late diminished the dietetic value of our Bread, because the finer the flour the less nutriment it affords. Furthermore, defective teeth result from a lack of grain sufficiently coarse to require some masticatory grinding. Savages usually possess magnificent molars, mainly because of their Bread, which is composed of grain roughly pounded between stones, and retaining much of the coarser parts.

Rye contains less gluten even than barley, and thus yields with leaven a heavy, close-grained Bread of darkest colour ; its bran, however well ground, is never absorbed. The latest equivalent to the Pumpernickel, or black Bread of North Germany, is the English "York Night Bread," so called because it must be baked throughout a whole night. Rye grains contain a peculiar odorous substance, and make a sour-tasting, dark Bread, which is apt to cause diarrhea with some persons; these grains are liable to the attack of a parasitic fungus, and to become "spurred," being then poisonous to the spinal cord. Bread made of rye flour with which a small quantity of the spurred rye is included, is to be sometimes prescribed for defective spinal energy.

Alum, as "stuff," or "rocky," is mixed with the dough by bakers in general for making Bread (about two ounces to 280 pounds of dough), because it certainly improves the appearance of the Bread, whitens it, and causes the loaves to break more easily when separated from one another. Potatoes, again, are employed by bakers, under the name of "fruit," for bread-making-one peck to the sack of flour-not as an adulteration for cheapening the produce, but beneficially to assist fermentation; mashed in their skins, and with yeast added, they supply a ferment. "How is Bread made?" asked the Red Queen of Alice (Through the Looking Glass). "I know," cried Alice, eagerly ; "you take some flour." "Where do you pick the flower?" the White Queen asked; "in a garden, or in the hedges?" "Well: it isn't picked at all," Alice explained; "it's ground." "How many acres of ground?" said the White Queen.

The crust of Bread is shown to contain more proteid, or principal nutriment, than the crumb. Crust coffee is a light, useful drink for invalids, which resembles in colour an infusion of coffee berries, and is made by steeping well-browned, or toasted crusts of Bread in cold water. For making "Brewis," take as many crusts, and other fragments of dry Bread as will be required; put them into a basin; pour over them sufficient boiling milk to well cover them; stand a plate on top of the vessel, and leave them to soak until they have absorbed the whole of the liquid, and are perfectly tender; then mash them to a smooth paste, removing any hard bits; stir in a small lump of fresh butter; season with salt, and a squeeze of lemon-juice, and serve them hot, or cold, with a jug of butter-milk, or cream. One Tyson, in Manchester, a while ago, achieved fame as proprietor of a house noted for hot buttered toast. It was Tyson's humour to supply for his customers only chops, steaks, Cumberland ham, hot buttered toast, and insolence. "The excellence of his ham and toast, and the badness of his manners, were Tyson's peculiar claims to remembrance. He walked about the place in his shirt sleeves, superintending proceedings, and showing rudeness to his customers. We regret to find that by these means he acquired fame, and wealth." In the Book of Nonsense, written by Edward Lear, London (1862), and dedicated to "the grandchildren, grand-nephews, and grandnieces of Edward, the thirteenth Earl of Derby," we read with amusement :- "There was an old man of the coast, Who placidly sat on a post; But when it was cold, he relinquished his hold, And called for some hot buttered toast."

This was quite a wise thing to do, seeing that the melted butter would serve admirably as fuel to quicken his bodily warmth. At the "Marquis of Granby's" (of glorious memory) in Pickwick, when Sam Weller paid a visit to Mrs. Weller, his mother-in-law, "the fire was blazing brightly in the bar parlour, and a plate of hot buttered toast was gently simmering before the fire, and the red-nosed man was busily converting a large slice of bread into the same agreeable edible on a long brass toasting-fork. 'Governor in?' enquired Sam. 'He may be, or he may not,' replied Mrs. Weller, buttering another round of toast for the red-nosed man. 'Ask a blessin', Mr. Stiggins.' The red-nosed man did as he was desired, and instantly commenced on the toast with fierce voracity." Quite an important medical art is that of making proper toast for the sick person. If the slice of bread is thick, and carelessly exposed to a blazing fire, the outside is charred, and converted into charcoal before the heat can reach the inside. Thus the moisture within is only heated, not evaporated, and makes the inside doughy, or clammy; and butter, when spread upon this toast, cannot penetrate through into the interior bread, but floats upon the surface in the form of oil, and the result is one of the most indigestible of compounds. The correct way is to have the bread stale, and cut into thin uniform slices, and to dry it thoroughly before browning it. Toast of this kind, when moistened with water, or with milk, is easily, and thoroughly acted upon by the digestive glands. But when it is a chip, dry enough to snap, is too dry. A central layer of soft bread lends it unity, and preserves enough moisture to influence the whole. If the intervening bread between the two toasted surfaces is more than a mere hint, then has the toaster failed ignominiously. Such an anomaly is "like dancing in thin boots surmounted by heavy gaiters." We remember it was "a lunatic, all gas, and gaiters," who made love to Mrs. Nickleby, the loquacious mother of Nicholas.

When sugar is continuously heated, its water is driven off, and presently the sugar grows darker and darker in colour until it is charred black, and becomes on the outside "caramel," which possesses disinfecting properties. Similarly, when bread is toasted, its starch is converted by the fire into dextrin, water being driven off, and the dextrin is carbonized, or burnt brown into "caramel," nearly identical with that of sugar. The toast, therefore, has likewise disinfecting properties, and when soaked in water makes this toast-water antiseptic, so that its administration in fever, and other septic diseases is a practically scientific proceeding. "Our forefathers and foremothers," says Mattieu Williams, "probably made this discovery through empirical experience when living in country places where stagnant water was a common beverage, and various devices were tried for making it drinkable. When toast-water is prepared by toasting a small piece of bread to blackness, and letting this float on water in a glass vessel, an observer can notice that little thread-like streams of brown liquid are descending from the bread into the water. They denote a solution of the caramel substance, which ultimately proceeds to tinge all the water. It is in just the same way that meat, or game, which is high before being cooked, becomes, if roasted, or baked, similarly carbonized, and browned outside, and thus made sweet." 66 To cook food au gratin means that the substance is covered with fine bread-crumb, so as to absorb the gravy thereof. "Gratins" were originally the browned parts of cooked rice. The French dishes au gratin" signify soups, or sauces consolidated by dry heat round spongy objects, such as crusts of bread. When the great Duke of Wellington returned to Dover in 1814, after an absence abroad for six years, the first order he gave at the Ship Inn" was for an unlimited supply of buttered toast. Moore's pathetic lines, (in The Fire Worshippers, 1839)— 66 " I never nursed a dear gazelle, To glad me with its soft black eye, But when it came to know me well, And love me, it was sure to die," have been adroitly parodied thus- "I never took a piece of toast, Particularly long, and wide, But fell upon the sanded floor, And always on its buttered side."

It is aptly said, "An epicure can breakfast well with fine bread and butter, and good coffee." Nine persons out of ten, when they call a man an epicure mean it as a sort of reproach, as one who is not content with everyday food, one whom plain fare would fail to satisfy; but Grimod de la Reyniere, the most famous gourmet of his day, author of Almanach des Gourmands, (Paris, 1812), said: "A true epicure can dine well from one dish, provided it be excellent of its kind. Yes! excellence is the object to be aimed at; if it be but potatoes and salt, let the potatoes be mealy, and the salt ground fine." Thackeray declared an epicure to be one who never tires of brown bread, and fresh butter." 66 Fried Bread is a good, homely, nutritious dish. "Take slices of brown Bread, fry them a nice brown with some dripping (either of beef, mutton, or fowl), and serve warm, with pepper." "There was a Prince of Lubberland, A potentate of high command:

Ten thousand bakers did attend him, Ten thousand brewers did befriend him; These brought him kissing crusts and those Brought him small beer before he rose."* The Art of Cookery. "Likewise a few rounds of buttered toast," said Mrs. Gamp, when giving her orders for her tea to Jonas Chuzzlewit's servant, "first cuttin' off the crustes in consequence of tender teeth, and not too many on 'em, which Gamp hisself, being in liquor, struck out four at one blow, -two single, and two double, as wos took by Mrs. Harris for a keepsake, and is carried in her pocket at this present hour along wi' two cramp-bones, a bit of ginger, and a grater like a blessed infant's shoe in tin, with a small heel to put the nutmeg in." "Toast and water is a friend, a sickroom ally. It is as cooling as the wind of the morning across fields of dew." Again, toast swimming in beef-tea constitutes the first solid food that a convalescent patient may take. For Brown Bread soup, stew half a pound of brown breadcrumbs in half a pint of light beer, and half a pint of water; when these are well blended, add half a pound of brown sugar, and half a pound of stewed French plums; boil all together, and serve hot. Whipped cream will improve the soup, if suitable. In Mrs. Gaskell's Cranford we read of "Bread-jelly, for which * In imitation of Horace's Art of Poetry (de arte Poetica), by the author of Tale of a Tub, (W. King, 1709.) "Coquus omnia miscet" (Juvenal). Mrs. Forester was famous. A present of this Bread-jelly was the highest mark of favour dear Mrs. Forester could confer. Miss Pole had once asked her for the receipt, but had met with a very decided rebuff; that lady told her she could not part with it to anyone during her life; and that after her death it was bequeathed, as her executors would find, to Miss Matty. What Miss Matilda Jenkyns might choose to do with the receipt when it came into her possession, whether to make it public, or to hand it down as a heirloom, she did not know, nor would she dictate. And a mould of this admirable, digestible, unique Bread-jelly was sent by Mrs. Forester to our poor sick conjuror. Who says the aristocracy are proud?" 66 :

In a Choice Manual: or Rare Secrets in Physick and Chirurgery (1653) is the following as "a good remedie against the pleurisie " Open a white loaf in the middle (new baked), and spread it well with triacle on both the halfes on the crown side, and heat it at the fire; then lay one of the halfes on the place of the disease, and the other half on the other side of the body directly against it, and so bind them that they loose not, nor stirre, leaving them so a day and a night, or until the imposthume break, which I have sometimes seen in two hours, or lesse; then take away the Bread, and the patient will immediately begin to spit, and void the putrefaction of the imposthume; and after he hath slept a little, yee shall give him meat; and with the help of God hee shall shortly heale."

For ear-ache the country people in some districts pound up the crumb of a loaf hot from the oven, together with a small handful of bruised caraway seeds; then wetting the whole with some spirit, they apply it for a while to the painful, and swollen part.

In former English days the way to "make a Panada" was "to set on the quantity you will make in a posnet of fair water; when it boils put a mace in, and a little bit of cinnamon, and a handful of currans, and so much bread as you think meet; so boil it, and season it with salt, sugar, and rose-water; and so serve it."

Muffins consist of a dough made soft with milk, first mixed with German yeast, the white of egg being added, and the dough being put under cover before the fire to rise. When saturated with hot melted butter, the muffin needs a vigorous digestion to negotiate it. Sam Weller told to Mr. Pickwick a story which 66 is much to the point about a man who "killed hisself on principle," giving the doctor to know he had eaten four crumpets every night for fifteen years on principle": "Four crumpets a night," said the doctor, "will do your business in six months." "Are you sure of that 'ere?" enquired the patient. "I'll stake my professional reputation on it," answered the doctor. "How many crumpets at a sitting do you think would polish me off? " asked the patient. "Do you think half-a-crown's worth would do it?" "I think it might," said the doctor. "Three shillings would be sure to do it, I suppose?" says the patient. tainly," says the doctor. 66 "Cer- Wery good," says the patient; "Good night." Next morning he gets up, has a fire lit, orders in three shillings' worth o' crumpets, toasts 'em all, eats 'em all, and so puts an end to hisself." The crumpet resembles the spongy inside of a muffin. It much resembles a round piece of a blanket soaked in butter, and is nearly as indigestible; the slang title "sudden death" has been given to this risky comestible. 66 Bread," said the Psalmist "eaten in sorrow is vain." Yet for a sick person of feeble digestive powers, and with a capricious appetite, simply-made bread-sauce, which can be most readily prepared, will often prove grateful, and nourishing, being, moreover, suggestive of game, or fowl. Take a pint of milk, a cupful of crumbled bread-crumb, a small onion, a blade of mace, a little pepper, and salt; peel, and cut the onion into quarters, and simmer them in the milk until tender, then take them out; stir the fine bread-crumbs into the boiling milk, and beat this with a fork very smoothly; add the seasoning, and butter, and a little white pepper, and give one more boil. To enrich the sauce, if desired, a spoonful of cream may be added. Time of making will be altogether only half-an-hour.