THE GENESEE FARMER. 



225 



A FEW WORDS ABOUT BREAD. 



Mr. Editok: — Good bread is one of the greatest 

 of luxuries. Families may live without rich cake or 

 pastry, or sweet confectionery, but not without bread. 

 We see as much variety in tlie quality of household 

 bread as in any other article of cookery. Really 

 good, light, well-baked bread, is far less common in our 

 households than it ought to be. Even those persons 

 who understand the principle and practice, will, 

 through inattention and indifference, often fail to 

 make bread well for a constancy. In the same house 

 you will often see good bread one time of baking, 

 and bad or indifferent the next. 



So much of bodily health depends upon a uniform 

 supply of good bread, that to make it well should be 

 a matter of primary importance in a family. If I 

 were a young man looking out for a wife, I should 

 be tempted to cast a favorable eye upon a young lass 

 who was renowned for making excellent bread. It 

 should be regarded as an accomplishment among 

 young ladies to be able, upon an emergency, to make 

 and bake the bread for the family, and do it well. 

 Even those young people whose parents are situated 

 so as to enable female servants to be kept, should yet 

 be taught to assist at times in such useful household 

 matters. Before a girl learns the fashionable accom- 

 plishments of the day, I would have her taught the 

 more homely but indispensable knowledge which will, 

 in her vocation of wife and mistress of a family, cause 

 her to be respected and valued. These are old- 

 fashioned notions, I am aware, but I believe we shall 

 see the time when these old fashions will be once 

 more revived among us. Many sensible men now la- 

 ment the frivolity and utter uselessness of the females 

 of the rank from which they would naturally wish to 

 select their wives, and feelingly lament that intelli- 

 gent and sensible women are rare. Elegant, accom- 

 plished girls there are in plenty ; but they will not 

 condescend to assume the station for which nature 

 had intended them, considering the duties of a wife 

 and mother incompatible with their more interesting 

 occupations of music, dancing, molding flowers in 

 wax, and imitating them in fine wool or silk. These 

 elegant pui-suits are not, howevei", incompatible with 

 good housewifery ; and I have known more than one 

 lady even in Canada who excelled as much in the one 

 art as in the other — whose fingers could trace the 

 most delicate embroidery, and make the most excel- 

 lent pastiy, and household bread, and butter. 



But I have wandered away from the subject 

 with which I started. I can hardly furnish a more 

 excellent recipe for good bread than that which is 

 made in my own family, and which I can confidently 

 recommend to my female friends as the finest in quality 

 and appearance, while at the same time it is most 

 economical ; 



Superior Household Bread. — AVash and pare half 

 a pail of. potatoes, taking great care to remove all 

 dark specks as you pare them ; throw them into a 

 pan of clean, cold water, which prevents them from 

 becoming brown or dark colored, which destroys the 



delicate whiteness of the bread. Boil the potatoes 

 with a large handful of salt till reduced to a fine 

 gruel, bruising any lump with a wooden potato 

 pounder ; pass it through a colander or coarse hair 

 sieve. When cool enough to bear your hand in it, 

 work in as much flour as will make the mixture into 

 a thick batter; to this sponge add a large cupful and 

 a half, or three parts of a pint, of good hup-rising 

 barm. A deep earthern pot or covered pail, or a 

 trough, is the best vessel to mix the sponge in. In 

 winter, it is better made over night — but as it rises 

 very light, and is apt to run over the pot or pail, it 

 is as well to set the vessel in a large shallow pan. 

 Work it up early in the morning. This quantity of 

 potato sponge will make a large batch of bread; up- 

 wards of twenty pounds of flour may be worked into 

 it. Knead the dough well and thoroughly after you 

 have added the flour, score it on the top, cover it with 

 a cloth, and set it to rise. In about two or thi^ee 

 hours, or sooner, your bread will have swelled, and 

 you v.ill find it out like a honey-comb. Knead into 

 loaves, let it stand about five minutes in the pans, 

 and then bake in a well-heated oven. When the 

 loaves are done, wet them over with a little skimmed 

 milk (or water will do), and wrap in a clean cloth, 

 setting them up on one side. Wrapping the bread 

 up in the steam till cold prevents it from becoming 

 hard and dry. 



Bread made in this manner will be equal in appear- 

 ance to the best baker's bread, and in point of sweet- 

 ness and economy superior to any household bread 1 

 ever tasted ; and as such I can confidently recom- 

 mend it to the attention of the public. Brown bread 

 can be made the same, by the addition of a handful 

 or two of bran. 



The quantity of potatoes named might be too much 

 for a baking for a small family; it can of course be 

 reduced to one half; but the larger quantity of po- 

 tatoes you have the finer will be your bread. At a 

 time when flour is so high priced, bread so made is a 

 great saving ; but its excellence is a still greater 

 recommendation than its cheapness. 



In a future number I will give another recipe which 

 I have also tested. 0. P. T. 



Oaklands, Rice Lake, C. W. 



A Farmer's AVife in the Olden Time. — Sir An- 

 thony FiTZHERERT, Chaucellor to Henry VIIL, 

 thus describes a farmer's wife: 



" It is a wyve's occupation to winnow all manner 

 of comes, to make malte, to wash and ironyng, to 

 make hay, shere corn, and in time of uede to help 

 her husband fill the muchpayne or dung cart, drive 

 the plow, load haj', corno, and such other. And go 

 or ride to the market to sell butter, cheese, egges, 

 chekyns, capons, hens, pigs, geese, and all manner of 

 comes." 



If the girls would spend as nnich time 's\ith ency- 

 clopedias as they do with milliners, they v.'ould soon 

 find their heads as attractive as their hats. 



A wise thinker has said that the reason why many 

 people know comparatively so little, is that they can 

 never beai- to be told anything. 



