A treatise on the art of making good wholesome bread of wheat, oats, rye, barley and other farinaceous grains / Exhibiting the alimentary properties and chemical constitution of different kinds of bread corn, and of the various substitutes used for bread, in different parts of the world

by Friedrich Christian Accum

A piece of cast iron covers the space before the door of the oven, exactly level with its floor; the opening underneath is applied to no particular use, but is generally made a receptacle for coal.

Fig. 1, is an elevation of the oven. The mouth is closed with a cast iron door, in which is a small sight-hole with a slide valve. To heat the oven, the door is thrown back, and a blower is applied to the mouth, so contrived, as not only to cover the mouth of the oven completely, but to enclose also the throat of the chimney; by this contrivance the draft is quickly so much increased, that the oven becomes speedily heated, and if at anytime it is too hot, it is only necessary to throw open the door of the fire place, and to put up the blower for a few minutes; the current of cool air which is thus made to pass through it, soon lowers the heat to the temperature required. In the blower is also an opening of the same kind as that in the oven door, which may be opened and shut at pleasure; the course of the flue is described by the dotted lines at (b).

Fig. 2, is the blower before mentioned for regulating the heat of the oven.

Fig. 3, is a transverse section from A to B on the plan, looking towards the opening, the fire-place entering the oven at c, the crown of the oven is turned with the bricks on end, and in building the oven instead of centering the arch, the whole space is filled with sand, which is well trod down and shaped to the shape which it is intended the crown of the oven shall be of. When the upper work is finished, the sand is dug out at the mouth of the oven.

Fig. 4, is a longitudinal section of the oven from C to D. In this sketch the situation of the flue is evident, and the sectional line of the blower, fig. 2, when in its place, is shown by the dotted line d, the open space a, under the oven, has been before spoken of.

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.