Ordinary American bread is greatly improved in flavor and digestibility when it is toasted. Toasting is the conversion of crumb into crust. It is resorted to daily by hundreds of thousands of Americans who, either knowingly or instinctively, adopt this way of avoiding the soggy bread which ruins the stomach and undermines the health. On this point let me cite the words of another medical expert, Dr. Alexander Bryce, author of "Dietetics," "Modern Theories of Diet," "The Laws of Life and Health," etc., endorsing the views of Russia's most eminent physiologist:
"Pavlov demonstrated that the chewing of fresh, moist bread [such as most Americans insist on having] produced no secretion of saliva worth mentioning, but dry bread caused the saliva to flow in large quantities. Stale bread, crust of bread, toast, zwieback (double-toasted bread), and plenty of biscuit compel fairly prolonged mastication with plenty of saliva, while soft bread is usually bolted with no production of digestive juice of any consequence."
Besides the yard-long loaves referred to, the French have an endless variety of breads, one of the best of them being the crescent-shaped "croissants" usually served with the morning coffee. Different provinces and towns have their own special kinds, but Paris is the paradise for bread-eaters; elsewhere, the bread is not so uniformly excellent, though nearly always better than that served in most other countries.
While the preponderance of crust over crumb is the most important aspect of Parisian bread, there are a number of other things to which it owes its excellence. For a high-class product it is important to select flour made of wheat which has a particularly fine flavor. The Flavor is also largely affected by the milling, the way the dough is made and kneaded, the quick or slow fermentation, the kind of oven used and its temperature, the length of leaving the bread exposed to the heat, and many other things.
A French baker's apprentice has to go through a four-years' course of studies before he is considered an expert. Is it a wonder that such favorable results are achieved? But besides his knowledge he must have an infinite capacity for taking pains. Plus on se donnera de peine pour pétrir la pâte, plus on obtiendra de pain, et meilleur il sera. On n'a rien de bon sans travail. "The more trouble you take in kneading the dough, the more bread you will get, and the better it will be. You cannot get anything good without work."
So say the authors—there are three of them—of the "Nouveau Manuel Complet du Boulanger," published in Paris by L. Mulo. It is a book of 626 pages with 93 illustrations. Besides an introduction which gives a bird's-eye view of the history of baking, there are ten chapters treating exhaustively of wheats and flours and their adulteration; on the making of dough and the different kinds of leaven; on troughs and ovens; on diseases of bread; on the peculiarities of the breads of various countries, including, of course, those of France, Austria and Germany as the most important.
Summing up their conclusions, the authors of this encyclopedic work say, under the subhead, "Signes Caractéristiques d'un Pain Bien Fabriqué," "Well-made bread must be light, well-raised and well-puffed up. Its color must be a particular yellow, shading into brown; it must be resonant when it is struck; its surface must be smooth, the inside full of cavities and grandes crevasses; its crumb white, very spongy and very elastic."
HOW THE BEST BUTTER IS MADE.
"If I were king," exclaimed a Sicilian shepherd boy, "I would have goosefat with my bread every day."
While the ancient Greeks and Romans already made many varieties of bread, butter was known to them only as a medicine, olive oil being generally used in place of it in the preparing of meals.