CHAPTER XXXI.
Bread.
REMARKS ON HOME-MADE BREAD.
It is surely a singular fact that the one article of our daily food on which health depends more than on any other, is precisely that which is obtained in England with the greatest difficulty—good, light, and pure bread—yet nothing can be more simple and easy than the process of making it, either in large quantities or in small. From constant failure, it is nevertheless considered so difficult in many families, that recourse is had to the nearest baker, both in town and country, as a means of escape from the heavy, or bitter, or ill-baked masses of dough which appear at table under the name of household or home-made bread; and which are well calculated to create the distaste which they often excite for everything which bears its name. Without wishing in the slightest degree to disparage the skill and labour of bread-makers by trade, truth compels us to assert our conviction of the superior wholesomeness of bread made in our own homes. When a miller can be depended on to supply flour of good quality, and the other ingredients used in preparing it are also fresh and good, and mingled with it in due proportions, and the kneading, fermentation, and baking, are conducted with care and intelligence, the result will uniformly be excellent bread. Every cook, therefore,—and we might almost say every female servant—ought to be perfectly acquainted with the proper mode of making it; and skill in preparing a variety of dishes, is poor compensation for ignorance on this one essential point.[[186]] Moreover, it presents no more real difficulty than boiling a dish of potatoes, or making a rice pudding; and the neglect with which it is treated is therefore the less to be comprehended or excused.
[186]. Only those persons who live habitually on good home-made bread, can form an idea of the extent to which health is affected by their being deprived of it. We have been appealed to on several occasions for household loaves—which we have sent to a considerable distance—by friends who complained of being rendered really ill by the bread which they were compelled to eat in the sea-side towns and in other places of fashionable resort; and in London we have heard incessant complaints both from foreigners and habitual residents, of the impossibility of obtaining really wholesome bread.
TO PURIFY YEAST FOR BREAD OR CAKES.
The yeast procured from a public brewery is often so extremely bitter that it can only be rendered fit for use by frequent washings, and after these even it should be cautiously employed. Mix it, when first brought in, with a large quantity of cold water, and set it by until the following morning in a cool place; then drain off the water, and stir the yeast up well with as much more of fresh: it must again stand several hours before the water can be poured clear from it. By changing this daily in winter, and both night and morning in very hot weather, the yeast may be preserved fit for use much longer than it would otherwise be; and should it ferment rather less freely after a time, a small portion of brown sugar and a little warm milk or other liquid, stirred to it a quarter of an hour or twenty minutes before it is required for bread-making, will restore its strength.
The German yeast, of which we have spoken in detail in another part of this chapter, makes exceedingly light bread and buns, and is never bitter; it is therefore a valuable substitute for our own beer-yeast, but cannot be procured in all parts of the country, for the reasons which we have stated.