WHOLE-MEAL  BREAD. 
173 
WHOLE-MEAL  BREAD. 
Sir, — I  read  with  much  satisfaction,  in  the  'Pharmaceutical 
Journal,'  the  report  on  Professor  Church's  experiments  on  wheat. 
It  is  a  subject  in  which  I  take  very  great  interest,  seeing  that 
wheat  constitutes  so  large  a  portion  of  human  subsistence.  He 
says  "dressed  wheat,"  so  that  I  am  not  sure  whether  he  means 
wheat  with  or  without  its  branny  covering.  The  translucent 
grain  (Russian)  contains  more  gluten,  and  consequently  more 
nitrogen.  It  is  for  this  reason  that  Odessa  wheat  (the  paste 
being  much  more  tenacious  and  every  way  better  when  cooked) 
i«  preferred  in  Italy  for  making  maccaroni,  vermicelli,  and  the 
like  paste. 
In  cold  and  rainy  seasons,  the  yield  of  gluten,  and  therefore 
of  nitrogen  in  wheat  is  very  greatly  reduced.    Very  many  years 
ago,  I  recollect  that  the  wheat,  during  such  a  season,  contained 
little  or  no  gluten,  and  resultantly  little  or  no  nitrogen.  When 
made  into  griddle  bread  or  cakes,  the  sides  collapsed  or  closed 
until  they  came  into  absolute  contact,  greatly  to  the  distress  of 
the  poor  suffering  people  who  knew  not  the  reason  whj.  Bakers 
empirically  mix  foreign  with  home  wheat,  because  the  foreign 
contains  more  gluten,  and  thence  makes  better  and  more  nutritive 
bread.    In  warm  summers  and  in  warm  climates,  generally,  the 
wheat  is  more  glutinous.    I  have  observed  buyers  in  the  markets 
here  chewing  a  little  wheat  so  as  thereby  to  ascertain  rudely'the 
amount  of  the  gluten.     They  did  not  know  anything  about 
gluten  as  such,  but  they  knew,  in  a  general  way,  that  stickey 
wheat — wheat  that  left  a  good  residue  when  chewed,  and  the 
starch  was  washed  out  of  it — made  superior  bread.    It  is  by  rea- 
son of  this  superiority  of  foreign  wheats,  that  they  come  to  be 
mixed  with  our  domestic  wheats  in  the  preparation  of  bread.  In 
fact,  British  wheat  alone  will  not  commonly  make  good  bread. 
I  have  examined  Russian  wheat,  a  small  shabby-looking  transcu- 
lent  grain,  that  yet  made  beautiful  bread, — far  better,  indeed, 
than  that  resulting  from  plump,  magnificent-looking  English 
wheat.    What  I  want  to  see  everywhere,  however,  is  the  prepara- 
tion of  wliole-meal  bread — bread  including  the  bran,  with  the 
bran-gluten  and  the  bran-phosphates,  so  all-essential  to  good 
