Bread. 



Bread has been denominated ^'the staff of life." From the 

 earliest ages it has been indispensable as an article of diet, and 

 the art of making it is one requiring no small degree of skill and 

 science. The oriental nations appear to have made their bread 

 with great simplicity, baking it on a clean part of the hearth, 

 or in a pan of iron, and in thin cakes, which were broken in- 

 stead of being cut. The Arabs are accustomed to make a fire 

 in a large stone pitcher and when it is sufficiently hes^ted apply 

 the dough to the outside. Modern inventions in the form of 

 brick ovens, or elegant cooking stoves, have given facilities for 

 more ambitious loaves, and requiring greater skill in their man- 

 ufacture. Bread has always exerted a great influence as a pac- 

 ifactor between nations. Their mutual dependence upon each 

 other for breadstuff, has a direct tendency to hold in check un- 

 lawful, ambitious and evil designs, and to quell animosities and 

 strife. It has been said that a scarcity of breadstuff in England 

 is sufficient to affect the commerce of the world, and in France 

 ut any time to produce a revolution. But we propose within 

 the limits of this report to treat of bread-making practically, 

 ])erfectly aM^are that we are entering upon forbidden ground, 

 yet claiming that in this day when women are asserting their 

 rigid to he men, we should have the privilege to invade a prov- 

 ince always held to be exclusively their own. 



What then is requisite for making good bread ? In the first 

 place flour made from sound grain, properly ground, and free 

 from any foreign substance. It is found, from analysis, that a 

 large share of the flour in market is adulterated with alum, 

 white clay, or some other substance, probably to give a good 

 color or to remedy the injury done to the grain by rain. Such 

 flour will not make nice bread, however skillfully prepared. 

 Then good yeast, skill in adding other ingredients, and mixing, 

 and last, though not least, a good oven for baking. The old 



