Bread made of Moss.
Some species of the tribe of Lichen, contain a considerable portion of starch, as the Lichen Rangiferinus, or rein-deer moss, which affords food to the stags and other fallow cattle of the North of Europe. The Icelanders form the lichen islandicus into bread, which is found to be extremely nutritious. The moss is collected in the summer, and, when dry, ground into powder, of which bread and gruel, or pottage, are made. It is sometimes also put whole into broth, or is boiled in whey, till it be converted into a jelly. In general, it is either previously steeped for some hours in warm water, or the water of the first boiling is rejected, in order to remove a part of the bitter extractive matter, which, if left, produces a disagreeable taste, and is apt to prove purgative.
Bread made of Earth.
The strangest substitute for bread that has ever been employed, is a sort of white earth. The poor in the Lordship of Moscoa in Upper Lusania, have been frequently compelled to make use of this earth as a substitute for bread.
The earth is dug out of a pit where saltpetre had formerly been worked; when exposed to the rays of the sun it splits and cracks, and small globules issue from it like meal, which ferments when mixed with flour. On this earth, baked into bread, many persons have subsisted a considerable time. A similar earth is met with near Genomu, in Catalonia.
In the western parts of Luisania too, the inhabitants have a most extraordinary custom of eating a white earth, mixed with clay and salt.
The rowers also, who ply on the river Mississippi, frequently drink large quantities of muddy water, which cannot fail to leave in the stomach a considerable quantity of earth. But it cannot be doubted, that a large quantity of earthy substances taken into the stomach would prove deleterious to health.
Analysis of Bread Flour.
On examining bread corn, for instance wheat, we perceive an outside coating, which after the grain has been soaked in water, may readily be peeled off. This forms the bran of the flour. Immediately under it, is that part of the grain which affords the coarsest flour, it is soft to the touch, and not easily reduced to an impalpable powder, and of a sweetish taste. This constitutes about one half of the grain. Underneath this substance lies what is called by millers, the kernel or heart of the wheat, namely, a hard mealy substance, almost transparent. This part of the grain is capable of being speedily reduced to an impalpable powder, it ferments more readily than the outer layers, and it is this which produces the finest and best kind of wheaten flour. Such is the mechanical constitution of the grain. When chemically examined we find that the flour of wheat, rye, and barley, is composed of three ingredients, or immediate constituent parts, which may be separated by simple processes, viz. starch, gluten, and saccharine mucilage. The proportion of these differ materially in different kinds of corn. The method of separating them is as follows: