It is essential that so universal a food should be nutritious,
palatable, and digestible. To fulfil these conditions, the
flour used must be rich in nutriment; the bread must be
light and porous, that as large a surface as possible may
be exposed to the digestive juices; and the cooking must
develop the flavor, and render the food materials more
assimilable. Wheat produces a nutritious flour, containing
all the food principles, though not in ideal proportions ; it
makes light bread, since it contains a large proportion of
gluten, a sticky, tenacious, nitrogenous substance, which
enables the dough to retain the gas formed in it; and it
produces bread in which the starch is in a digestible form.
Wheat has the further advantage over other grains : that
the kernel can be easily separated from the chaff ; that the
yield of flour is large; that it is grown in almost every
part of the world, in large amounts. In 1895 there were
more than 2,400,000,000 bushels produced, largely in the
United States, Russia, France, and India.
Wheat is a plant belonging to the grass family. It is
classified as spring wheat and winter wheat, according to
the time of sowing, the winter wheat being planted in the
fall. It is also known as hard and soft, and as red or white
wheat. The very hard variety is grown in Italy, and is
used in the manufacture of macaroni. If a grain of wheat
240 HANDBOOK OF DOMESTIC SCIENCE
be soaked for a few hours in water and a tliin cross-section
cut, there may be plainly seen under the microscope four
distinct layers. The two outer coats are bran, the third,
also considered part of the bran, is made up of square or
oblong proteid cells ; and the inner part, or endosperm, con-
sists of large cells of irregular shape, containing starch cells
lying in gluten. If a drop of iodine be put upon the section,
the starch will become blue, and be clearly distinguishable
from the rest of the grain. The composition of wheat varies
with the kind, the climate, and other conditions. Professor
Atwater gives as the average composition of one hundred
samples of wheat flour : water, 12.5 % ; proteid, 11.3 % ; fat,
1.1%; carbohydrates, 74.6 % ; mineral matter, 0.5%.
The manufacture of flour from wheat is a complicated
process, and its methods change from year to year. Its
essential parts are as follows : first, the cleaning of the
wheat, and the separation of the good grains from the im-
perfect ones and from foreign material ; second, the crush-
ing or cutting of the wheat, either by the old method of
grinding between stones, or by the new process in which
the grains are passed between a series of grooved rollers;
third, the bolting or sifting by which the bran is separated
from the ''middlings," and the different grades of flour
from one another. In the whole wheat flour the bran is
ground with the middlings, and forms part of the flour.
Page 114
Presented as published in 1900. 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
It is essential that so universal a food should be nutritious, palatable, and digestible. To fulfil these conditions, the flour used must be rich in nutriment; the bread must be light and porous, that as large a surface as possible may be exposed to the digestive juices; and the cooking must develop the flavor, and render the food materials more assimilable. Wheat produces a nutritious flour, containing all the food principles, though not in ideal proportions ; it makes light bread, since it contains a large proportion of gluten, a sticky, tenacious, nitrogenous substance, which enables the dough to retain the gas formed in it; and it produces bread in which the starch is in a digestible form. Wheat has the further advantage over other grains : that the kernel can be easily separated from the chaff ; that the yield of flour is large; that it is grown in almost every part of the world, in large amounts. In 1895 there were more than 2,400,000,000 bushels produced, largely in the United States, Russia, France, and India.
Wheat is a plant belonging to the grass family. It is classified as spring wheat and winter wheat, according to the time of sowing, the winter wheat being planted in the fall. It is also known as hard and soft, and as red or white wheat. The very hard variety is grown in Italy, and is used in the manufacture of macaroni. If a grain of wheat
be soaked for a few hours in water and a thin cross-section cut, there may be plainly seen under the microscope four distinct layers. The two outer coats are bran, the third, also considered part of the bran, is made up of square or oblong proteid cells ; and the inner part, or endosperm, consists of large cells of irregular shape, containing starch cells lying in gluten. If a drop of iodine be put upon the section, the starch will become blue, and be clearly distinguishable from the rest of the grain. The composition of wheat varies with the kind, the climate, and other conditions. Professor Atwater gives as the average composition of one hundred samples of wheat flour : water, 12.5 % ; proteid, 11.3 % ; fat, 1.1%; carbohydrates, 74.6 % ; mineral matter, 0.5%.
The manufacture of flour from wheat is a complicated process, and its methods change from year to year. Its essential parts are as follows : first, the cleaning of the wheat, and the separation of the good grains from the imperfect ones and from foreign material ; second, the crushing or cutting of the wheat, either by the old method of grinding between stones, or by the new process in which the grains are passed between a series of grooved rollers; third, the bolting or sifting by which the bran is separated from the ''middlings," and the different grades of flour from one another. In the whole wheat flour the bran is ground with the middlings, and forms part of the flour.