CHAPTER III.

BREADSTUFFS.

TWENTY years ago, when the microscope was first brought to bear upon the examination of the breadstuffs in common use, the immediate result of its revelations was a general scare. The popular notion of bread, at least in England, presupposed that made of only one kind of cereal, in the form of very finely dressed flour.

If the most overweening confidence was placed in the staff of life, a term of which bread seems to have enjoyed a monopoly, that confidence was shaken to its very foundation by a statement to the effect that the flour of barley, oats, beans, peas, rice, and many other grains had been detected in ordinary bakers' bread; and not only so, but that many other matters not coming properly within the definition of breadstuffs, such as sulphate of copper, alum, and plaster of Paris, together with other mineral abominations under the term of "Jonathan," besides a heavy leavening with mashed potatoes, were proved to be used by bakers.

At this period by far the larger quantity of bread in common use was that termed households, and was made, or supposed to have been made, of that description of white flour bearing the same name. An inferior description of bread was also sold, made of what is known as seconds flour, and bearing the same designation. The more expensive kind was sold either as best or fancy bread. In addition to these, brown bread, milk loaves, French and tinned loaves, were all of them in much more moderate demand; but the real old-fashioned bread of the past century could hardly be purchased throughout the length and breadth of the land.

In Scotland, oat cakes, pease bannocks, bean and pea bread, rye cakes, are now gradually being exchanged for the ordinary whiter breads familiar to English consumers. But on the Continent the great mass of the breadstuffs forming that portion of the food of the people is still of a more varied and coarser description.

Between all those varieties, which, if space would permit, might include many others, it may be of some little service to point out wherein consists the true nutritive value in a greater or less proportion of the various cereals. From the following table, the average components of the meals and flours which are in common use can be compared :

Starch, gum,

sugar, etc. 677 70.5 72°3 64°2 699 589 59°2 83.6 25.1

2'I 2'0 2'4 5.2 69 2'I 2'9

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2'7 I'7 2'I 2.8 I'4 2.6 3°3 .6

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As far as their composition is concerned, it will not be difficult to comprehend the separate and distinct uses to which they may at different times be applied. Wheat undoubtedly occupies the first place in the estimation of Englishmen. Wheaten bread may now be found forming the most substantial portion of the daily food in this country. As such, every portion of the grain must be regarded according to the quantity and digestibility of the nourishment it affords. But as certain portions produce immediate effects other than those of mere nutrition, it will be necessary to particu

larise as briefly as possible the peculiarities of each.

When wheat is well grown and soundly harvested, it soon attains that condition which fits it for being made into bread of several kinds, the most ancient method being to subject the grain to a heavy pounding in a rude mortar of wood or stone. The exterior portion of the husk, which becomes easily detached during this process, was simply winnowed away by blowing with the mouth, and with these latter particulars we have nothing to do.

The heavier cortex or covering of the grain itself is of a somewhat complicated structure. No less than five separate cuticles or skins have been shown to exist. Within the cellular formation of these skins a curious fermentative albuminous principle is found, which in itself not only affords a most valuable nutritive quality, but has also the effect of rendering the flour of the kernel more easy of conversion into a digestible condition, and materially assists in a rude panification or bread-making, which, however primitive, affords a strong and healthy food staple.

This process of making bread from wheat, as adopted in more ancient times, is still practised in many eastern countries; and, as if to show an inevitable cycle in the annals of food, as of other historical events, more recent researches into the food

value of various descriptions of bread are now tending towards the re-establishment in public favour of whole meal bread not altogether dissimilar to that made by the rough-and-ready process just described.

Prior to the efforts which have been made within the last few years to show the nature and proportions of the nourishment to be found in the different portions of the grain, the fashion for extremely white bread had been almost universally accepted. From the finest wheat bread-prepared by the most costly methods of selection, ground by the most exquisite machinery into the finest and most impalpable of flours, dressed through silken sieves, until only that portion which would yield a bread of the most dazzling whiteness was retained-to the commoner and cheaper bread upon which the poorer classes have so much to depend, the desire for whiteness and whiteness alone was the one test which was applied to both the flour and the bread.

Unfortunately, great beauty of colour is not compatible with any mixture of the outer covering of the grain; and, as in the outer portion both of the kernel and covering the larger proportion of nitrogenous, fatty, and mineral matters is contained, bread with an undue preponderance of starch has been that which has met with the greatest favour and demand. No scientific writer