They also made a gingerbread of flour, honey, and spices, which travellers in the winter made use of; another bread of flour, milk, butter, eggs, and ginger. Then, also, they baked biscuits for shipboard and for victualling forts, but he pathetically points out that these biscuits, if kept for a length of time, especially in a damp place, developed dangerous energy in the shape of weevils, which were harmless (non tamen noxii). He says of the griddle cakes that they would keep good for twenty or more years, by which time they would be reasonably stale.
Scarcely two centuries have passed since rye flour, by itself, or mixed with wheat, furnished nearly all the bread consumed by the labouring classes of England. With the exception of wheat, rye contains a greater proportion of gluten than any other cereal, to which fact it owes its capability of being converted into a spongy bread; and if anyone wishes to try it for themselves, here is a recipe for making Grislex Surbröd or Husholdinngsbröd (bread for the household), which is the ordinary bread for the eastern parts of Norway.
‘Contrary to our expectations we found white bread everywhere, but the common bread is a heavy bread, the chief ingredient of which is rye. It is always sour—the goodwife intends it to be so. They also have “flat bread” (flad bröd) made of potatoes and rye. It was this kind of bread that the two women whom we happened in upon were making. They were in a little underground room, unlighted except from the door.
‘The women making the bread were seated on either side of a long, low table, upon which were huge mounds of dough. The one nearest the door cut off a piece of this, and moulded it, and rolled it out to a certain degree of thinness; then the other one took it, and, with the greatest care, rolled it still more. At her right hand was the fireplace, and upon the coal was a red piece of iron, forming a huge griddle more than half a yard across. The bread matched this very nearly in size when it was ready to be baked, and it was spread out and turned upon the griddle with great dexterity, and as soon as it was baked it was added to a great heap on the floor.
‘The woman said she should continue to bake bread for thirty days. She had a large family of men who consumed a great deal, and they had to bake very often in consequence. In many places they do not bake bread oftener than twice a year, then it is a circumstance like haying or harvesting. We heard an Englishman say of this bread of the country: “One might eat an acre of it and then not be satisfied.”’
In Denmark, too, rye bread is the rule among the peasantry and small farmers—wheaten bread being to them a luxury, and used as cake is with us. In Russia, although its chief export is wheat from the Black Sea, and oats and rye from the Baltic, the peasant eats but rye bread dipped in hemp oil, and even then, as but a few years since, famine visits this granary, and the hapless peasants being reduced to mix orach and bark with their wretched bread, have at times been unable to procure even this, and have died in thousands of starvation. Although Austria-Hungary produces wheat which makes the finest bread-flour in the world, yet throughout the Austrian Empire the peasantry eat rye bread, whilst at Vienna the wheaten bread, especially the Kaiser semmel, which is what we should term a dinner roll or manchet, is simply perfection.
The excellence of the Viennese bread is said to be owing to the bakers, the ovens, and the yeast. The men work according to the traditions of the past, which have been handed down to them. The ovens are heated by wood fires lit inside them during four hours; the ashes are then raked out, and the oven is carefully wiped with wisps of damp straw. On the vapour thus generated, as well as that produced by the baking of the dough, lies the whole art of the browning and the success of the semmel. An ounce of yeast (three decagrammes) and as much salt is taken for every gallon of milk used for the dough. The yeast is a Viennese speciality, known as St. Marxner Pressheffe, and its composition is a secret. It keeps two days in summer and a little longer in winter.
Viennese bread is noted for the fantastic shapes into which it is made, but concerning the crescent shape the following legend is told: ‘Many years ago, when there was war between the Austrians and the Turks, the city of Vienna was besieged, and so closely invested that famine seemed inevitable unless the inhabitants yielded and surrendered to the hated Turks. One day a baker in his cellar noticed a peculiar noise, and, looking about, discovered that a boy’s drum on the ground in a corner had some marbles on the parchment, which every little while danced about and caused the odd sound. Surprised, he listened intently, and found that the noise was repeated at regular intervals. He put his ear to the ground and could distinguish a thumping sound, which, on reflection, he concluded must be produced by the enemy undermining the city. He went to the authorities with his story, but at first it was discredited. At last the general in command made an investigation, and found the baker’s suspicions correct. A counter-mine was made and exploded, and the Turks repulsed.
On the restoration of peace, the Emperor of Austria sent for the baker, and expressing his gratitude to him for having saved the city, asked what reward he could claim. The modest baker refused riches or rank, but only asked the privilege of making his bread hereafter in the form of the crescent, which had so long been their terror, so that it might be a reminder to those who ate it that the God of the Christian is greater than the God of the Infidel. So the Imperial order was issued granting the baker and his descendants the sole right to make their bread in the shape of the Turkish crescent.’