From the establishment of bakers in Rome, the art of making loaf, or fermented bread, spread amongst the ancient Gauls; but its progress in the northern countries of Europe was slow, and in some northern districts, the luxury of eating fermented, or loaf-bread, is at this day not in general use. Some of the modern Italians consume the greatest part of their bread-flour in the state of macaroni and vermicelli, and in other forms of polenta, or soft pudding; and even at present millions of people neither sow nor reap, but content themselves with enjoying the spontaneous productions of the earth.
Bread Corn,
Properly so called, of which loaf-bread is chiefly made among cultivated nations, comprehends the seeds of the whole tribe of (cerealia), or gramineous plants; for they all contain a farinaceous substance, of a similar nature, and chiefly composed of starch. Those of the cerealia in common use are the following:
| Wheat | Triticum hybernum. |
| Barley | Hordeum vulgare. |
| Rye | Secale cereale. |
With us, wheat is chiefly employed for the fabrication of bread. It is, in fact, the only grain of which light porous bread can be made; but rye and barley are also used as bread-corn. The farina of the other cerealia afford also a nutritive and wholesome bread; though their flour is not so susceptible of the panary fermentation, it cannot be made into the white texture of the wheaten loaf. The bread formed from them is consequently much inferior to that prepared from wheat. The following seeds are chiefly employed to make a species of bread:
| Oats | Avena Sativa. |
| Maize | Zea Mays. |
| Rice | Oriza Sativa. |
| Millet | Panicum milliaceum. |
Oats are used in the north of Europe for making a kind of bread, called oatmeal-cake, and particularly by the inhabitants of Scotland. Maize is frequently employed as bread-corn in North America.
Rice nourishes more human beings than all the other seeds together, used as food; and it is by many considered the most nutritive of all sorts of grain. A very ridiculous prejudice has existed with respect to rice, namely, that it is prejudicial to the sight, by causing diseases of the eye; but no authority can warrant this assertion: on the contrary, the opinion of the ablest men (Cullen’s Mat. Med. v. i. p. 229) may be quoted in favour of rice being a very healthy food: and the experience of all Asia and America may be adduced with sufficient weight to have answered this objection, if it had been supported by any thing more than vulgar prejudice, unsupported by facts. This grain is peculiarly calculated to diminish the evils of a scanty harvest, an inconvenience which must occasionally affect all countries, particularly those which are very populous. It is the most fitted of all food to be of use in relieving general distress in a bad season[[2]], because it comes from a part of the world where provisions are cheap and abundant; it is light, easy of carriage, keeps well for a long time, and contains a great deal of wholesome food within a small compass. Indeed, it has been ascertained that one part of rice contains as much food and useful nourishment as six of wheat.
[2]. Reports of the Society for bettering the Condition of the Poor, Vol. I. p. 137.
Next to the cerealia, the seeds of leguminous plants may be regarded as substitutes for bread corn. Their ripe seeds afford the greatest quantity of alimentary matter. Their meal has a sweetish taste, but they cannot be made into light and porous bread, without the addition of a portion of wheaten flour. Their meal, however, though it forms but a coarse and indifferent bread, neither very palatable nor very digestible, except by the most robust stomachs, is yet highly nutritive.