BREAD. 



BREAD. 



countries most remarkable for the plentiful | There are several sorts of Indian corn In 

 culture of the potato. | America. The yellow flinty corn is reckoned 



Various experiments have been made to the sweetest and most nutritive. The white 

 combine the meal of wheat, barley, oat, bean, ground corn of the southern states makes the 

 and pea flour with vegetable substances, and j fairest, but considerably the weakest flour. 



Of this last species there is one variety called 

 the flour-corn, which is scarce, but very valu- 

 able. 



Buckwheat. This is not kiln-dried, but dried 

 in the sun, being reaped in October, a month 

 remarkably dry and serene in America. The 

 husk is taken off by what is called running it 

 through the mill-stones. The farinaceous part 

 of the grain is then easily separated from the 

 husk by winnowing; and, being afterwards 

 ground fine, forms an agreeable and nutritive 

 aliment, and may be made into bread with 

 wheat flour or other substances. 



Beans and peas. When these are used as 

 bread, in some places the flour is steeped in 

 water to take off the harsh flavour, and after- 

 wards, when mixed with wheat flour, the taste 

 is hardly to be perceived. Specimens of very- 

 good bread have been produced, mixed as fol- 

 lows : 1 Ib. bean flour, 1 Ib. potatoes, and 4 

 Ibs. of wheat flour. The flour or meal both of 

 beans and peas, by being boiled, previous to 

 its being mixed with wheaten flour, incorpo- 

 rates more easily with that article, and is pro- 

 bably much more wholesome than it otherwise 

 would be. 



Bran may in times of scarcity be advan- 

 tageously employed in the making of common 

 household bread ; this is effected by previously 

 boiling the bran in water, and then adding the 

 whole decoction in the dough ; thus the bran 

 will be sufficiently softened and divested of its 

 dry hu,sky quality, while the nutritive part, 

 which is supposed to contain an essential oil, 

 is duly prepared for food. It is asserted, that 

 the increase in the quantity of bread, by the 

 addition of one-fourth bran, or 14 Ibs. 14 oz. 

 of bran to 56 Ibs. of flour, is from 34 Ibs. to 

 36 Ibs. of bread beyond what is produced by 

 the common mode. 



Dr. Davison considers that there are many 

 vegetables which would afford wholesome 

 nutriment either by boiling or drying and 

 grinding thej-n, or by both these processes. 

 Amongst these may be reckoned, perhaps, the 

 tops and bark of gooseberry trees, holly, haw- 

 thorn, and gorse. The inner bark of the elm 

 may be converted into a kind of gruel ; and 

 the roots of fern, and probably those of many 

 other plants, such as some of the grasses, and 

 clovers, might yield nourishment, either by 

 toiling, baking, and separating the fibres from 

 the pulp, or by extracting the starch from 

 those which possess an acrid mucilage, such 

 as the white bryony. If, in these days of im- 

 proved chemical knowledge, a quartern loaf 

 of very good bread can be made out of a deal 

 board (see Quart. Rev. No. c'iv., quoted also in 

 Quart. Journ. of Jlgr. vol. v. p. 626), there is no 

 reason why many of our native herbs and 

 shrubs, which are now comparatively useless, 

 should not, as their various nutritive proper- 

 ties become better known, be turned to consi- 

 derable advantage in the production of 

 greater or less proportion of cheap and who" 

 ! some food. There are many other substan 



which have been found to produce very whole- 

 v some and nutritive bread. 



Using the potatoes after boiling, steaming, or 

 baking, and reducing them into a sort of pow- 

 der, seems, however, to be the most ready me- 

 thod of making them into bread. 



Oats. It appears, from some experiments 

 made by Dr. Richard Pearson of Birmingham, 

 that oats answer better mixed with potatoes 

 than has been commonly apprehended. 



He found that three pints (dry measure) of 

 fine oatmeal, three pints of seconds flour, and 

 one quart of potato pulp kneaded into a dough, 

 with a proper quantity of yeast, salt, and milk 

 and water, made a bread of excellent quality. 



Barky. Mixed with an equal proportion of 

 wheat, or one-fourth potatoes and three-fourths 

 barley, barley bread is good. The following 

 method of making bread of wheat and barley 

 flour has been strongly recommended. To 

 four bushels of wheat ground to one sort of 

 flour, extracting only a very small quantity of 

 the coarser bran, add 3 bushels of barley 

 flour. The oven should be hotter than when 

 bread is made of wheat alone ; and the loaves 

 should remain in the oven about two hours or 

 more. The offal of the barley is good food 

 for hogs. This bread appears to be improved 

 by being baked in half-gallon loaves. 



Rye. In several parts of the kingdom a 

 mixture of rye and wheat is reckoned an ex- 

 cellent species of bread. In Nottinghamshire 

 even opulent farmers consume one-third wheat, 

 one-third rye, and one-third barley ; but their 

 labourers do not relish it. As rye is well 

 known to be a wholesome and nutritious grain, 

 its consumption cannot be too strongly recom- 

 mended. The astringent quality of rice, mixed 

 with rye, corrects the laxative quality of the 

 latter, and makes it equally strong and nourish- 

 ing with the same weight of common wheaten 

 bread. The principal objection to rye is the 

 circumstance of the grain being sometimes 

 ergotted, which renders the bread unwhole- 

 some. 



Indian Corn. The flour of maize or Indian 

 corn, by itself, makes a heavy bread. The 

 right mode of manufacturing it is to boil the 

 flour to the consistency of paste, and then, 

 when mixed with wheat flour, it makes a most 

 excellent bread. If used by itself, it is said to 

 have at first a laxative effect, but that dimi- 

 nishes by use, and at any rate can easily be 

 corrected by a mixture either of barley or rice. 

 It is stated, on very respectable authority, as 

 the general opinion of the inhabitants of the 

 United States, but more particularly of the 

 people of Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, and 

 Kentucky, where Indian corn is raised in the 

 largest quantity, and applied to the greatest 

 variety of uses, that rather more nutriment is 

 contained in a bushel of Indian corn than of 

 wheat. In the four states above-mentioned it 

 constitutes the almost entire food of the labour- 



ing class of the people, and has supplanted the 

 use of wheaten bread. 

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