Foods, their selection and preparation

A fresh cake of compressed yeast should have a creamy color with a grayish-brown tint. It should be only slightly moist, uni¬ form throughout, should have fine even tex¬ ture, and should break with a clean fracture and a faint "click.” Any dark or streaked color indicates incipient decomposition. The odor should be pleasing, somewhat suggestive of an apple. The flavor should never be acid or cheesy. If held for too long a time or at too high a temperature, the yeast gives an undesirable flavor to bread and the yeast [293] cells may be so far destroyed as to be ineffec¬ tive in leavening the bread. The advantages of the use of compressed yeast are that, if fresh, it is more certain in its action and the action takes place faster than if some other form of yeast is used. The disadvantage of its use is that it does not keep well. It should be kept in the refrigerator, where it may be kept about a week. Dry Yeast. Dry yeast is available in two forms — one is inactive, the other the comparatively new active or '"quick rising” form. The inactive dried yeast cakes con¬ taining corn meal keep longer than any other form of yeast. Either of these forms may be kept without refrigeration. In the preparation of dried yeast cakes, the yeast cells are mixed with corn meal, a food-yielding substance of a drying character. The mixture is then pressed into cakes, cut into appropriate sizes, and dried. Since the yeast cells are in an inactive state, it takes a longer time to make bread from them than from active yeast cells. The inactive cells must be given opportunity to develop and take on the active form. When these yeast cakes are soaked in a small amount of warm water containing a little sugar, the yeast becomes active again and bread may be leavened from it. It is less certain in its ac¬ tion, however, and requires more time than either compressed or quick-rising dry yeast. Several brands of the fast or quick-rising dry yeasts are on the market. This granular form of yeast is packaged in amounts cor¬ responding to a cake of compressed yeast. While this dry form of active yeast does not remain active indefinitely it does keep longer than compressed yeast and without refrigera¬ tion. Usually each package carries a date and directions, "For best results use before Home-Grown Yeast. In the old days be¬ fore yeast was available in commercial form, women grew yeast at home, seeding a nutri¬ ent batter with wild yeast from the air, the utensils, or the material used in making the batter. If this batter was held under appro¬ priate conditions, any wild yeast present would grow and the mixture would become foamy and spongy. Such a mixture was called a starter. Some farm women still make a starter, but usually they seed it with com¬ mercial yeast.