PREPARATIONS.
Wheat makes the best bread because it contains gluten. Among proteins gluten is unique, because it is so elastic and after it has stretched it has a tendency to retain its place. This is what makes bread so porous. There are various meals or flours that can not be made into bread, or even dough, because they lack compounds which will act as frame work.
Bread can be made in many ways. The chief question for the housewife to decide is whether to make the bread from entire wheat flour or from patent flour. They are so different in value that a decision should not be difficult. It is also necessary to decide whether to use yeast bread or some other kind.
Yeast bread is made essentially from flour, water and yeast in the presence of heat. There are so many ways of making bread of this kind that a recipe is not necessary. The amount of salt to be added depends upon individual taste. Some like to set their yeast working in part potato, part flour. Others use milk instead of water. Some add shortening. And nearly all women believe that their own bread is the best.
Yeast is made up of myriads of little plants or fungi, which thrive on the sugary part of the flour. They convert this into alcohol and carbonic acid gas. The alcohol is practically all gone before the bread is brought to the table. The gas raises the bread, assisted by the expansion of the water in the dough when it is placed in a hot oven.
The yeast consumes a great deal of the nutritive part of the flour. This may amount to from 5 to 8 per cent. of the food value, and I have read that sometimes it is as high as 20 per cent. Liebig said that the fermentation destroyed enough food material daily in Germany to supply 400,000 people with bread. However, yeast bread is very agreeable to the taste and therefore is probably worth more than the unfermented product.
One objection to yeast bread is that all the yeast is not killed in baking, and the alcoholic fermentation may start again in the stomach. If the bread is turned into zwieback this is remedied. Fresh bread is not fit to eat, for it is very rarely properly masticated and if it is merely moistened and converted into a soggy mass in the mouth it is hard to digest.
Unleavened bread is made by making the flour into a paste, rolling out thin and baking well. Any kind of flour may be used. This is the passover bread of the Jews.
Dr. Graham's bread was made by mixing Graham flour with water, without any leavening, mixing the dough thoroughly, putting this aside several hours and baking.
Macaroni and spaghetti are made by mixing durum wheat flour with water, without any leavening. With the addition of eggs we get commercial noodles. The paste is moulded as desired.