Soak overnight. In the morning, stir it into boiling water, slightly salted, and cook half an hour, stirring up well from the bottom.
Each patented breakfast cereal has its champion. It would be invidious to name any of them here. Nearly all are founded upon wheat, corn, rye, barley or rice. Each is accompanied by full directions for the preparations of the same for the table.
Oatmeal, rice, mush, farina—any of the cereals that must be cooked before they are eaten—are delicious and nutritious when committed to the “hay-store” of which we are hearing so much.
The soaked cereal is cooked for five minutes after the boil begins, and the bubbling pot, closely covered, is set immediately in a nest made by hollowing out the hay with which a box is packed. The hay is pressed closely all around the pot, an old quilt is spread over all and the whole left untouched for five, six or ten hours. The cereal will be hot when served, and tender beyond compare.
BREAKFAST BREADS
Beginning with the most important and difficult form of bread-making, I offer three methods of preparing and baking the wholesome home-made loaf, fondly recollected by those whose early lives were spent in regions where bakers’ sawdusty cubes and parallelograms were not delivered at the back door in lieu of the genuine staff of life.
Potato sponge bread (No. 1)
Boil and mash, while hot, four potatoes of fair size, beating into them a tablespoonful, each, of cottolene or other fat and of white sugar. Beat smooth, adding, gradually, one and one-half pints of lukewarm water. Strain through a colander upon a pint of sifted flour. When you have a lumpless batter, add half a cake of compressed yeast, dissolved in four tablespoonfuls of warm water.
This is your sponge. Set in a moderately warm place in a bread-bowl with a perforated cover. If you have not this cover, throw a double fold of mosquito net or cheese-cloth over the bowl.
In four hours in summer, and six in winter, the sponge should be light and the top broken by air bubbles. Have ready in another deep bowl or tray five pints of dried flour of the best quality, sifted with a tablespoonful of salt. Hollow a space in the middle and work the sponge gradually into the flour with a clean, cool, bare hand, well floured to hinder the dough from sticking to it.