Seo. 23.] 



THE BREAD QUESTION'. 



387 



The wlicat is ground into fine wheat flour, seventy-four per cent. ; brown 

 meal, si.xteen per cent. ; bran, ten per cent. Tlie meal is then mixcJ quite 

 tliin wiih water and the necessary yeast added, and this is used to nii.x the 

 Mhite flour into a dougli, whicli is baked as usual when light. The bread 

 is declared to be greatly improved, being less likely to sour, and is li<dit, 

 sweet, and nutritions, 



405. torn Brcadi — Altliough Indian corn is a more universal crop than 

 wheat, corn bread is by no means in universal use. The reason is in some 

 measure to be accounted for in the iidjorn love of fermented bread which 

 the meal of this grain will not make. The use of " leavened bread"' has 

 been thought by some to come in part from the early notion that it created 

 a distinction between Christians and Jews. The former always use leavened 

 bread — at least the Protestants do, in their sacraments — and the Jews have 

 their holy "feasts of unleavened bread;" so that eating unleavened bread 

 as a constant practice has been said to be an unchristian act. It was also 

 the daily food of the heathen, and in early times, when the first settlers <>( 

 the country were very poor, corn bread was the only kind ; and tho use 

 of it now may call up reminiscences of painful poverty. It is also the only 

 bread of slaves, and it may be looked upon as a badge of 6ervitudi\ At 

 any i-aTc, tiio poorest classes of tho Northern States make the least use of 

 com bread. Yet it is the very thiog tiiat tliey should cat, because it is 

 nutritious, healthful, and economical. In Northern cities, corn meal fur- 

 nishes scarcely one per cent, of the lircad food, and not one per cent, of that 

 is made into bread. In the farming regions of the northeastern States pure 

 corn bread is oidy seen occasionally upon the farmer's table, though bread 

 made of a mixture of about two jiarts of corn meal and one of rye meal, 

 familiarly known as " ry'n'-injun," is still extensively used. (See 393.) 



A much better mixture is one part rye uieal, two parts corn meal, ami 

 four parts fine wheat flour. The rye and corn are mixed with yeiL>-t, quite 

 soft, and set to rise, and after getting very spongy, the wheat flour is worked 

 in, and tiie mass allowed to get light before it is put to bako. 



At the South, corn bread is almost tho only sort ever seen upon the tables 

 of many families wiio rank upon a par witii the nwiss of Northern fanners. 

 All cat it there and are content, both master and slave, and those who are 

 hired, or sit at the table as guests. If a farmer at the North should attenijtt 

 to feed liis ialiorers exclusively upon corn bread, there would jirohal.iy be a 

 revolt, jiarticularly if a majority of theuj were Irish, whoso only bread in 

 their own coimtry was ))otatoes. 



Such luliorei-s liave yet to learn that com bread gives more working force 

 than bread of fine wheaten flour. The latter gives the most brain fiKnl, and 

 is best for growing children ; but Indian corn, either in the form of bread, or 

 many of the other forms in which it comes to tho tables of those who know 

 how to cook it, furnishes the laborer with a greater projiortioii of i>o\ver 

 than any other grain, and its value should be better known, aud it then 

 would be more used as an article of food. 



