Mrs. Lincoln's Boston cook book

Bread-making is at once the easiest and the most difficult branch of culinary science, — eas}', if only sufficient inter- est be taken to master a few elementary principles and to follow them always, using the judgment of the best authorities, until experience furnishes a sufficient guide ; difficult, if there be any neglect to use proper care and materials. It should be regarded as one of the highest accomplishments ; and if one tenth part of the interest, time, and thought which are devoted to cake and pastry and fancy cooking were spent upon this most important article of food, the presence of good bread upon our tables would be invariabl}' secured. Origin and Meaning of Breads — Bread is made from a variety of substances, — roots, fruits, and the bark of trees ; but more generally from certain grains. The word bread is derived from the verb to hray^ or pounds expressive of the old method of preparing the grain. Bread is therefore made of something braj-ed, as bra^^ed wheat or braj'ed corn. Bat these brayed or ground materials are not prop- erly bread until they are mixed or moistened with water. Then the brayed grain becomes doughy from a word mean- ing to wet^ or moisten. In primitive times this wetted meal or dough was baked at once in hot ashes, and made The Boston Cook Book. 37 a firm, compact bread, exceedingly hard of digestion. Accidental!}^ some one discovered that b}^ letting the dough stand till it had fermented, and then mixing it with new dough, it raised, or lifted, the whole mass, and made it lighter and more porous. Thus we have our word loaf^ from Ufian, to raise, or lift up. The old dough — or leaven, as it is called — lifts up the dough. The raised mass is held in place b}^ the heat in baking, and becomes the loaf of raised bread. Bread made from Wheat. — Bread is made principally from wheat flour. Eye and corn meal are sometimes used, but better results are obtained when there is a mixture of wheat with one or more of these grains » Rye used alone makes a close, moist, stickj^ bread ; while corn meal alone makes too drj' and crumbly a loaf. Wheat is an annual grass of unknown origin, cultivated more extensively' in the Northern hemisphere. There are over one hundred and fifty varieties of wheat. They are classified as red or white, in reference to the color of the grains; as w^inter or summer, — winter wheat being sown in the autumn, and summer wheat in the spring ; as soft or hard, — soft wheat being tender and floury or starchy, and hard wheat being tough, firm, and containing more gluten. Chemical Composition of Wheat. — Wheat is the only grain which contains gluten in the proper proportion and of the desired quality essential to the making of light, spongy bread. It contains all the elements necessary for the growth of the hody ; but, to meet all the requirements of nutrition, the whole of the grain, with the exception of ^ , ^ . „ , ^ , . ^ ' ^ Fig. 1. Gram of wheat, showing outer the outer husk, should be coat of silex and woody fibre. used. Wheat has several la^'ers of bran coats, the outer one of which is almost wholly pure silica and is perfectly indigestible. Underneath this 38 The Boston Cook Book. Fig. 2. Grain of wheat with bran coat removed-