If a lady can ever find a good excuse for having poor bread, she certainly can find none, except perhaps extreme poverty, for setting her poor bread on the table the second time. Yet, too generally, women seem to think that, as a matter of course, if they, by carelessness or any other means, have been so unlucky as to make a batch of poor bread, their family and friends must share their misfortune, and help them eat it up; and, by this means, many a child has had its health seriously impaired, and its constitution injured, and perhaps its moral character ruined—by being driven, in early life, into pernicious dietetic habits.
It was observed many years ago, by one of the most eminent and extensive practitioners in New England, that, during a practice of medicine for thirty years, he had always remarked that, in those families where the children were most afflicted with worms, he invariably found poor bread; and that, as a general fact, the converse of this was true; that is, in those families where they uniformly had heavy, sour, ill-baked bread, he generally found that the children were afflicted with worms.
A careful and extensive observation for a few years, would convince every intelligent mind that there is a far more intimate relation between the quality of the bread and the moral character of a family, than is generally supposed.
“Keep that man at least ten paces from you, who eats no bread with his dinner,” said Lavater, in his “Aphorisms on Man.” This notion appears to be purely whimsical at first glance; but Lavater was a shrewd observer, and seldom erred in the moral inferences which he drew from the voluntary habits of mankind; and depend upon it, a serious contemplation of this apparent whim, discloses a deeper philosophy than is at first perceived upon the surface.
Whatever may be the cause which turns our children and ourselves away from the dish of bread, and establishes an habitual disregard for it, the effect, though not perhaps in every individual instance, yet, as a general fact, is certainly, in some degree, unfavorable to the physical, and intellectual, and moral, and religious, and social, and civil and political interests of man.
Of all the artificially prepared articles of food which come upon our table, therefore, bread should be that one which, as a general fact, is uniformly preferred by our children and our household,—that one, the absence of which they would notice soonest, and feel the most,—that one which—however they may enjoy for a time the little varieties set before them—they would be most unwilling to dispense with—and which, if they were driven to the necessity, they would prefer to any other dish, as a single article of subsistence.
To effect this state of things, it is obvious that the quality of the bread must be uniformly excellent; and to secure this, I say again, there must be a judgment, an experience, a skill, a care, a vigilance, which can only spring from the sincere affections of a devoted wife and mother, who accurately perceives and duly appreciates the importance of these things, and, in the lively exercise of a pure and delicate moral sense, feels deeply her responsibilities, and is prompted to the performance of her duties.
Would to God that this were all true of every wife and mother in our country—in the world!—that the true relations, and interests, and responsibilities of life were understood and felt by every human being, and all the duties of life properly and faithfully performed!
VARIETIES OF BREAD.
Rye bread. Indian meal bread. Use of sour milk, or butter-milk. Acids. Family grinding.