Amongst the subjects needing attention in the kitchens of
tlii3 country, few deserve it better than bread. It must be
admitted sorrowfully that, taken as a whole, both the
British housewife and her cook are extravagant and
ignorant. In most cases it may be also freely conceded
that the former fault is the outcome of the latter ; we do
not know how to make the best of the materials we have to
deal with, and, consequently, frequently fail in obtaining
their full value. It is safe to say that in most households
the waste of bread is something almost incredible, and,
strange to say, the lower in the social scale usually the
greater is the waste. One factor in this is the universal
craze for white bread. Now, pure white flour is delicate, of
course, but to obtain the purity of its colour a good deal of its
nutritive value has had to be eliminated under the most
AND
CHAPTER I .
BREAD.
B
o
BREAD, OAKES, AND BISCUITS.
favourable circumstances, whilst under unfavourable ones
various more or less harmless additions are made to inferior
flour to bring it to the fineness of texture and delicacy of
appearance required. Taken at their best these adultera-
tions spell waste, for the buyer is paying for a superior
article, and only getting one of inferior quality all round ;
and one which, moreover, will very likely upset all one’s
arrangements, for recipes based on the use of the best
materials will not work out correctly when inferior stuff is
used, and to this fact many culinary failures are due. But
granted this is the worst of harmless adulteration, adul-
teration of a less innocuous kind leads to far more serious
trouble, so much so in fact that the bread supply and its
purity and quality are points it behoves every mother to
study pretty closely.
There are divers kinds of flour (beginning at the top of
the scale), from the delicate Hungarian or Vienna flour,
and “ best pastry whites ” (as the very whitest and lightest
flour is called in this country), down through “ seconds ” or
“ household,” to wholemeal and bran flour. Now, granted
that these are all pure, they all have their uses. The first
kinds are used for pastry, delicate cakes, and other articles
more valued as tempting to the palate than for their
nutritious properties ; for bread, “ household ” or “ seconds ”
flour is far more wholesome, containing as it does a great
deal of the bran, or “ middlings,” as it is technically called,
which is really of importance from an hygienic point of
view. Lastly, there was a rough kind of flour produced by
grinding up the wheat entirely, husk, bran, and corn, just
as it came, but this produced too rough a flour to suit
modern taste and its use has been gradually aban-
doned, until improvements brought in, as a substitute,
the well known “wholemeal” flour, which consists of
coarsely ground wheat from which only the very coarsest
parts of the husk have been omitted. Ordinary brown
bread is usually made from this, though sometimes seconds
BREAD.
3
Page 1
Presented as published in 1902. 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
Amongst the subjects needing attention in the kitchens of this country, few deserve it better than bread. It must be admitted sorrowfully that, taken as a whole, both the British housewife and her cook are extravagant and ignorant. In most cases it may be also freely conceded that the former fault is the outcome of the latter ; we do not know how to make the best of the materials we have to deal with, and, consequently, frequently fail in obtaining their full value. It is safe to say that in most households the waste of bread is something almost incredible, and, strange to say, the lower in the social scale usually the greater is the waste. One factor in this is the universal craze for white bread. Now, pure white flour is delicate, of course, but to obtain the purity of its colour a good deal of its nutritive value has had to be eliminated under the most
AND
CHAPTER I .
B
o
favourable circumstances, whilst under unfavourable ones various more or less harmless additions are made to inferior flour to bring it to the fineness of texture and delicacy of appearance required. Taken at their best these adulterations spell waste, for the buyer is paying for a superior article, and only getting one of inferior quality all round ; and one which, moreover, will very likely upset all one’s arrangements, for recipes based on the use of the best materials will not work out correctly when inferior stuff is used, and to this fact many culinary failures are due. But granted this is the worst of harmless adulteration, adulteration of a less innocuous kind leads to far more serious trouble, so much so in fact that the bread supply and its purity and quality are points it behoves every mother to study pretty closely.
There are divers kinds of flour (beginning at the top of the scale), from the delicate Hungarian or Vienna flour, and “ best pastry whites ” (as the very whitest and lightest flour is called in this country), down through “ seconds ” or “ household,” to wholemeal and bran flour. Now, granted that these are all pure, they all have their uses. The first kinds are used for pastry, delicate cakes, and other articles more valued as tempting to the palate than for their nutritious properties ; for bread, “ household ” or “ seconds ” flour is far more wholesome, containing as it does a great deal of the bran, or “ middlings,” as it is technically called, which is really of importance from an hygienic point of view. Lastly, there was a rough kind of flour produced by grinding up the wheat entirely, husk, bran, and corn, just as it came, but this produced too rough a flour to suit modern taste and its use has been gradually abandoned, until improvements brought in, as a substitute, the well known “wholemeal” flour, which consists of coarsely ground wheat from which only the very coarsest parts of the husk have been omitted. Ordinary brown bread is usually made from this, though sometimes seconds