The sight, being the first sense to receive an impression of
external objects, will inevitably control choice, unless training and
experience correct its errors. Briefly, it may be said that flour
8 BBEAD-MAKING.
made of sound, well matured and well cleaned wheat, whether with
or without a portion of the outer coatings, is good enough. But
the most economical bread, and the bread which is alone suited to
use as an exclusive or nearly exclusive diet, must contain all the
substance of grain, except the very outermost layer of cells consti-
tuting the bran ; — and such flour will always be of a creamy rather
than a chalky white, and will make a tenacious dough, tough
enough to bend any but a strong handled spoon in stirring it.
Such bread also requires longer and slower baking, and is less
adapted to biscuits than to loaves.
Among the more refined and cultured there has prevailed a
belief that flour made from the whole grain, — "Graham," as it has
been called, in remembrance of the American apostle of vegetarian-
ism—is the most wholesome. This belief has been taken advan-
tage of by cunning millers, to help them get rid of large quantities
of inferior wheat, utterly unfit for making good flour of any sort,
and so Graham bread has had hard work to sustain itself, and its
use is mostly confined to the production of a sort of hot biscuit
called "gems," which are supposed to be less hurtful than other
bread of that class. While the argument urged in favor of flour
from the whole wheat, that nature clothed the wheat kernel with a
branny husk and intended we should eat it so, might apply equally
to barley and oats, so far as they are used for human food, yet in
the case of wheat there is not much objection to be made, if the
grain is well cleaned, and is itself of the first quality. While it is
often claimed and with truth, that in decorticating the wheat before
grinding, as the new process does, a portion of the important
elements of the grain necessary to make it a perfect food, is re-
moved, yet with the vast and varied dietary of the American peo-
ple there is not likely to be any real deficiency on the whole.
As a matter of mere economy, however, there can be little doubt
that the outer layers of the cell-structure of the wheat grain give the
cheapest supply of calcic, phosphatic and nitrogenous food material,
and it is possible that fastidious people with a limited dietary,
chiefly of bread, may really suffer for want of the elements which
the flour-making process removes. Such people are the ones who
need "bran bread," as farmers and work-people are apt to stigma-
tize the Graham loaf. But where bread and meat and fruit go
freely together to constitute daily food, there is little danger of
BKEAD-MAKING. 9
elementary deficiency. Nature has provided against this, by making
men soon tire of any sort of diet, however agreeable for a while,
which is not complete in its constitution — that is which does not
contain a full supply of all the essential elements of nuirition.
Page 3
Presented as published in 1890. Historical recipes may not meet modern food-safety standards. Cook from the modern interpretation, not the original instructions.
AI-modernized reading of the original text
The sight, being the first sense to receive an impression of external objects, will inevitably control choice, unless training and experience correct its errors. Briefly, it may be said that flour
made of sound, well matured and well cleaned wheat, whether with or without a portion of the outer coatings, is good enough. But the most economical bread, and the bread which is alone suited to use as an exclusive or nearly exclusive diet, must contain all the substance of grain, except the very outermost layer of cells constituting the bran ; — and such flour will always be of a creamy rather than a chalky white, and will make a tenacious dough, tough enough to bend any but a strong handled spoon in stirring it. Such bread also requires longer and slower baking, and is less adapted to biscuits than to loaves.
Among the more refined and cultured there has prevailed a belief that flour made from the whole grain, — "Graham," as it has been called, in remembrance of the American apostle of vegetarianism—is the most wholesome. This belief has been taken advantage of by cunning millers, to help them get rid of large quantities of inferior wheat, utterly unfit for making good flour of any sort, and so Graham bread has had hard work to sustain itself, and its use is mostly confined to the production of a sort of hot biscuit called "gems," which are supposed to be less hurtful than other bread of that class. While the argument urged in favor of flour from the whole wheat, that nature clothed the wheat kernel with a branny husk and intended we should eat it so, might apply equally to barley and oats, so far as they are used for human food, yet in the case of wheat there is not much objection to be made, if the grain is well cleaned, and is itself of the first quality. While it is often claimed and with truth, that in decorticating the wheat before grinding, as the new process does, a portion of the important elements of the grain necessary to make it a perfect food, is removed, yet with the vast and varied dietary of the American people there is not likely to be any real deficiency on the whole. As a matter of mere economy, however, there can be little doubt that the outer layers of the cell-structure of the wheat grain give the cheapest supply of calcic, phosphatic and nitrogenous food material, and it is possible that fastidious people with a limited dietary, chiefly of bread, may really suffer for want of the elements which the flour-making process removes. Such people are the ones who need "bran bread," as farmers and work-people are apt to stigmatize the Graham loaf. But where bread and meat and fruit go freely together to constitute daily food, there is little danger of
elementary deficiency. Nature has provided against this, by making men soon tire of any sort of diet, however agreeable for a while, which is not complete in its constitution — that is which does not contain a full supply of all the essential elements of nutrition.