BREAD 481 



eician," published in 1846, tlio formula recommended for bread made of wheat meal 

 is as follows : 



Wheat moal .... 3 Ibs. avoirdupois. 



Bicarbonate of soda . . 4| drachms troy. 



Hydrochloric acid. . . .5 fluid drachms and 25 minims, or drops. 



Water 30 fluid ounces. 



Salt | of an ounce troy. 



' Bread made in this manner,' says the author, ' contains nothing but flour, com- 

 mon salt, and water. It has an agreeable, natural taste, keeps much longer than 

 common bread, is much more digestible, and much less disposed to turn acid,' &c. 



Liebig, in his ' Letters on Chemistry,' very judiciously remarks, ' that the inti- 

 mate mixture of the saliva with the bread, whilst masticating it, is a condition which 

 is favourable to the rapid digestion of the starch ; wherefore the porous state of the 

 flour in fermented bread accelerates its digestion.' 



Now, it is a fact, which can be readily ascertained by anyone, that unfermented 

 bread is permeated by fluids with difliculty. It will not absorb water, hence its 

 heavy and clammy feel ; nor saliva, hence its indigestibleness ; nor milk, nor butter. 

 Unfermented bread will neither make soup, nor toast, nor poultice. When a slice of 

 ordinary bread is held before a bright fire, a portion of the moisture of the bread, as 

 the latter becomes scorched, is converted into steam, which penetrates the interior of 

 the mass, and imparts to it the sponginess so well known in a toast properly made ; 

 but if a piece of unfermented bread be treated in the same manner, the steam pro- 

 duced by the moisture, not being able to penetrate the unabsorbent mass, evaporates, 

 and the result is an uninviting slice, toasted, but hard inside and out, and into which 

 butter penetrates about to the same extent as it would a wooden slab of the same 

 dimensions. 



Fermentation,' says Liebig, 'is not only' the best and simplest, but likewise 

 the most economical way of imparting porosity to bread ; and besides, chemists, gene- 

 rally speaking, should never recommend the use of chemicals for culinary preparations, 

 for chemicals are seldom met with in commerce in a state of purity. Thus, for 

 example, the muriatic acid which it has been proposed to mix with carbonate of soda 

 in bread is always very impure, and very often contains arsenic. Chemists never 

 employ such an acid in operations which are certainly less important than the one 

 just mentioned, without having first purified it.' 



In order to remove this ground of objection, tartaric acid has been recommended 

 instead of muriatic acid for the purpose of decomposing the carbonate of soda ; but 

 in that way, another unsafe compound is introduced, since the result of the reaction is 

 tartrate of soda, a diuretic aperient, and consequently very objectionable salt, for it is 

 impossible to say what mischief the continuous ingestion of such a substance may 

 eventually produce ; and whatever may be the divergence of opinion,' if there bo such 

 a divergence, as to whether or not the constant use of an aperient, however mild, may 

 be detrimental to health, it surely must be admitted that, at any rate, it is better to 

 eschew such, to say the least of it, suspicious materials ; and that, at any rate, if 

 deprecating their use be an error, it is an error on the safe side ; after all, a bake- 

 house is not a chemical laboratory. 



Before leaving this question of unfermented bread, wo must not omit to speak of a 

 remarkable process invented by Dr. Dauglish, and which has lately excited some 

 attention. Without discussing the value of the idea which is said to have led Dr. 

 Dauglish to invent the process in question, we shall simply describe Dr. Dauglish's 

 method of making broad, and give his own version of its benefits : 



' Taking advantage of the well-known capacity of water for absorbing carbonic 

 acid, whatever its density, in quantities equal to its own bulk, I first prepare the 

 water which is to be used in forming the dough, by placing it in a strong vessel 

 capable of bearing a high pressure, and forcing carbonic acid into it to the extent 

 of say ten or twelve atmospheres ' (about 150 to 180 Ibs. per square inch) ; ' this the 

 water absorbs without any appreciable increase in its bulk. The water so prepa/ed 

 will of course retain the carbonic acid in solution so long as it is retained in a close 

 vessel under the same pressure. I therefore place the flour and salt, of which 

 the dough is to be formed, also in a close vessel capable of bearing a high pressure. 

 Within this vessel, which is of a spheroidal form, a simply-constructed kneading 

 apparatus is fitted, worked from without through a closely-packed stuffing box. Into 

 this vessel I force an equal pressure to that which is maintained on the aerated water- 

 vessel ; and then, by means of a pipe connecting the two vessels, I draw the water 

 into the flour, and set the kneading apparatus to work at the same time. By this 

 arrangement the water acts simply as limpid water among the flour, the flour 

 and water are mixed and kneaded together into paste, and to such an extent as shall 

 VOL. I. II 



