Popular Errors concerning the Quality of Bread.
The great advantage of eating pure and genuine bread must be obvious. Every part of the wheat, which may be called flour, was not only intended to be eaten by man, but it really makes the best bread. The delusion, however, by which so many persons are misled to think that even the whole flour is not good enough, obliges them to pay much dearer for their bread than they need, to gratify a perverted and fanciful appetite. Had it not been for the custom of eating whiter bread than the whole of the flour can make, the miller and baker would not have employed their art to render the bread as white as possible, and to make the consumer pay for the artificial whiteness. The average quantity of flour, from an unvaried series of experiments, made from age to age, through the course of many hundred years, appears to be three-fourth parts in weight of the whole grain of wheat, taking all wheats together, being more in the finer sorts, and less in the coarser; and the bread made from this flour has always been deemed the standard of the food of bread corn. But, by insensible degrees, the manufacture of bread became separated into two distinct employments.
In consequence of this alteration, the baker, having no further connexion with the market for corn, became dependant solely on the mealman for supplying him with flour, who, not considering himself amenable to the then existing assize laws, made different kinds of flour, some extremely fine and white, while others were very coarse and unpalatable. These artificial whites, when made into bread, were so pleasing to the eye and taste, that, in the course of a few years, they got into such general use that the people refused any longer to purchase the bread made of the whole of the grain.
“Our forefathers[[8]] never refined so much: they never preyed so much on each other; nor, I presume, made so many laws necessary for their restraint, as we do.”
[8]. The great advantage of eating pure and genuine bread, comprehending the heart of the wheat with all its flour. Shewing how this may be a means of promoting health and plenty, preserving infants from the grave, by destroying the temptation to the use of alum and other ingredients in our present wheaten bread. By an advocate for the trade. London, 1773. See also Important considerations upon the act of the thirty-first of George II. relative to the assize of bread. London: T. Becket, Strand, 1768.
“In looking back, for some hundred years, it appears that they adopted a certain plan, supposing that nature had given nothing in vain, and that every part of the wheat which may be called flour, was not only intended to be eaten by men, but that it really made the best bread, as that might be called the best, which is best adapted to general use, and in itself so fine, as to contain no parts of the coat, or husks of grain.”
“The inference which I mean to draw from what is premised, is to remind my fellow citizens of the unfortunate delusion of thinking that even the whole flour of the wheat is not good enough for them; that part of it must be taken away, and given to birds or beasts.”
“By this delusion, supposing a certain quantity of wheat appropriated to their use, (and this is the view they should see it in,) they lose one third part of the flour, and consequently have so much the less bread to supply their wants.”
“Is it not then monstrous to hear them complain? Is it not absurd to talk of poverty, and yet pay a seventh or eighth part more than they need, to gratify a fantastic appetite? Had it not been from the custom of eating whiter bread than the whole flour of the wheat will make, should we have thus imposed on ourselves? Would the miller or baker employ all his art to make the bread as white as possible, and oblige us to pay for this artificial whiteness? They tell the consumer, the whiter it is, the finer; and the finer, the more nutritive. Thus we become dupes so far as to overlook the essential good properties of genuine bread, made of all the flour of the wheat, and likewise the difference in the price.”
“We are taught to favour a gross delusion at the suggestion of interested persons, against our own substantial welfare. It is the interest of every one to be honest, and say nothing contrary to his real sentiments, as it is the duty of those who have knowledge, to inform such as are ignorant. Those who have never eaten bread of all the flour in a pure state, with the native taste of wheat, and the moisture which it preserves, can know nothing of the comparative excellence of it with respect to the whitened city bread which they have been accustomed to eat all their lives.”
“The dictates of the understanding will ever yield to the pleasures of the imagination: and the provident will be attentive to take the advantage of the extravagant. Thus it happens that the poor have been bewildered, and deprived of the object they sought.”
“The event depends on the good sense of masters and mistresses of families, and their right understanding of what they mean to eat, that is, of what parts of the wheat the bread they consume is made. If they are satisfied that the bread is more pure than what they used to eat, and sufficiently fine, we may presume, if they are in their right minds, they will prefer it for domestic use. Every family of fourteen or fifteen persons, consuming at the rate of one pound each, in a day, pays near 16s. a week: if they can save 2s. 6d. or 1s. 6d. it is an object: to a poor man who spends 5s. in bread, if he can save eight or ten pence, it may purchase two or three pounds of animal substance towards making one feast in a week.”
“In regard to the patriotic miller, he does not pretend to consult our good in preference to his own; on the contrary, he reasons very deeply, as if it were best for us to live on the essence of a leg of mutton, brought within the compass of a pint, than feed on such porterly food as the mutton prepared in the ordinary way of roasting or boiling. He maintains, that the finer the bread, though the quantity be smaller, the more nutritive.”
The wheaten bread, of the London baker, is acknowledged to be whitened by a mixture of alum, which serves to keep the loaf in better shape, renders it the whiter, and causes it to imbibe the more water to increase the quantity of the bread. Thus he consults his interest, without regard to the consumer: the whiter it is, the more adulterated; and, as constant experience proves, such bread, after it is two days old, becomes dry and husky.”
“If bread, made in a private family, of the same flour as the baker uses, will not be so white, we must suppose that there is an art of whitening; and that this would be no secret, if it were not pernicious.”
“The bread recommended, made of all the flour of the wheat, retains all the good properties of bread; it is eatable at the distance of eight or ten days: is it not on this account the most eligible?”
“Take a loaf of the wheaten London bread, made by the baker in his usual way; let the same baker make another with all the flour of the wheat, without any attempt to whiten or otherwise adulterate it. Let him keep both in the same temperature of air, and produce a specimen of each at any reasonable distance of time, and it will be easily seen what the difference is. This arises not only from mixtures, but the peculiar manner of raising the sponge.”
“In regard to the difference of consuming new bread of the first day, and that which has been made for three, four, or five days, it is computed to be at least a fourth part. If our present wheaten bread cannot be eaten with pleasure beyond the second day, it is not wonderful to discover at last that we are lighting our candle at both ends.”
“That the vitiated bread agrees with some people, whether by the force of habit, or the mixtures it contains, is not disputed; but in general it is very hurtful.”
“Great numbers of our fellow-subjects eat their bread much coarser than the Londoners: are they weaker? they are generally stronger. Some part of the advantage must be carried to this account.”
“Let us have time to subdue our prejudices, and we shall find that bread of all the flour of the wheat, for the general use, is better both in quality and price than the present wheaten bread.”
“In regard to the London baker, ask him of what parts of the wheat his bread is made, and he frankly acknowledges he cannot tell; and how should he? He can buy only what is to be sold; and the quality is not ascertained with any such precision as to enable him to answer the question. He, poor man does the best he can, not to give a sweet wholesome aliment, but something which is white. He knows that bread made of a proper proportion of the wheat, not only differs in colour, but is moister at the end of eight days than his the third day; he likewise knows that it is sweeter, and has the native grateful flavour of the wheat, as the God of Nature hath given it, and not as it hath been adulterated.”
“If the parliament had required us to eat plum-cake, seed-cake, or sugar-cake, we should have known that plums, seed, and sugar, constituted the difference; but from the moment the law made distinctions in the division of the flour for three different kinds of bread for common use, we were exposed to the mercy of the miller to give the baker what he pleased, and call it by what name he pleased; we could only judge whether the bread pleased us or not. The miller and the baker divide and subdivide; and instead of flour for bread, and the bran that remained, according to ancient practice, whereby the beggar as well as the prince was pleased, bread became a mystery, and we no longer knew what we were eating.”
“Our misfortune, in regard to bread, is, that we eat it too fine; we decline the use of barley in bread, having hardly enough for beer. Oats and pease are rejected: at length we reject even wheaten flour,—unless we are supplied with the finest parts only!—What will befall us in the end?”
“Custom often makes a law more forcible than Law-givers, and we have now to contend with custom.—The first consideration should be, that the flour which represents three-fourths of the wheat, shall be really such, and brought to market in sacks, marked Standard: the value of it may be more easily ascertained, than that of which is made the wheaten bread we now eat.”
“The baker may be a little the more reluctant to come into this salutary proposal, as knowing that if he is to decline the use of alum, flour that is in any degree musty, or made of wheat that has grown or vegetated before gathered in, as sometimes happens, he cannot work it up so advantageously in the bread now proposed to be made, as in the wheaten bread.—Be this as it may, as soon as the baker finds this standard flour is vendable in bread, he will buy it; and knowing what part of the wheat it ought to be, he will work it into bread with so much the more satisfaction; and being sensible that we mean to eat genuine bread, he will cease to whiten it by any hurtful art. We shall all understand what we eat, and the trade will be familiar to us; we shall be so much happier as we become so much the more honest, and more healthy than we were before. Such is the serious light in which I see the subject before me.”
“Every occupation hath its mystery; and the professors are gratified in thinking themselves wiser than the rest of the world in their own way. Every professed cook of the first rate can melt down a large ham into the contents of half a pint. The confectioner uses bitter almonds, which are poisonous; the oilman colours his pickles with copper, to render them green; and the baker uses alum to whiten his bread, and make his flour imbibe the more water, by which he makes the more bread out of the same quantity of flour. This, and other occasional mixtures of the flour of different grains, renders his bread husky, dry, and disagreeable the third day.—Are we the better for any such mysteries?”
“Whether the wheat be all of one kind, or married, which is the phrase for mixing of wheats of different kinds, it will be easy for people of condition, by experiment, or by the comparison with genuine bread made in their families, to know whether justice be done; though we may easily discover that the baker for the public, is generally a better master of his trade than most housewives are. The mystery may be thus developed; our health and pleasure promoted; and our bread be as much cheaper than it is now, as the gain on the flour will make it, by using all that the wheat produces.”
“Every one may try by grinding and bolting his own grain, and baking his own bread, and the manufacturers of bread may find nearly as good account in bread of all the flour, which can be so easily ascertained; as they do in the wheaten, which is involved in difficulties.”
“The public have administered to their own delusion, their eyes are shut to their own advantage. If the wealthy will adopt the use of the bread in question, the labouring part of our fellow-subjects will certainly follow the example; and as to paupers, they will gladly comply.”
“Common sense, in all ages, has achieved wonders.”