I have thus far spoken almost entirely of wheaten bread, because I consider that the most wholesome kind of bread for ordinary use—for “daily bread.” When bread is made of superfine flour, the same general rules should be observed.
Rice, barley, oats, rye, Indian corn, and many other farinaceous products of the vegetable kingdom, may also be manufactured into bread, but none of them will make so good bread as wheat. Good rye, raised on a sandy soil, when cleansed and ground in the manner I have already described, and prepared in all respects according to the rules I have laid down, will make very excellent bread. Rye, coarsely ground, without bolting, and mixed with Indian meal, makes very wholesome bread, when it is well made. Good rye and Indian bread is far more wholesome for common or every-day use, than that made of superfine flour.
There are various ways of preparing Indian meal bread; and when such bread is well made, it is very wholesome—much more so, for every-day use, than superfine flour bread. “In a memoir lately read before the French Academy,” says the Journal of Health, “the author undertook to show that maize (Indian corn) is more conducive to health than any other grain; and, as a proof of this, the fact was adduced that, in one of the departments in which this grain was most abundantly and universally used, the inhabitants were remarkable for their health and vigor.”
One great drawback to the wholesomeness of Indian meal bread, however, is, that it is almost universally eaten hot, and too generally, pretty well oiled with butter, or some other kind of animal fat or oil. But Indian meal bread can be prepared in such a manner as to obviate these difficulties, and render it very wholesome.
Barley and oats may be manufactured into very wholesome bread; but they are little used for such purposes in this country.
Rice, peas, beans, potatoes, &c., may also, by mixing them with a portion of wheat or rye flour, be manufactured into bread; but, as I have already stated, there is no other kind of grain or farinaceous vegetable substance from which so good loaf bread can be made, as good wheat.
In making bread from Indian meal, and other kinds of farinaceous substances containing little or no gluten, yeast or leaven is rarely if ever used to make it light. More generally sour milk or butter-milk and saleratus or soda are used for this purpose; and they who do not well understand the principle upon which these substances make their bread light, often greatly impair their own success by their mismanagement.
It is, perhaps, most common for them to mix their sour milk or butter-milk and saleratus together, and wait till the effervescence is over, before they stir in their meal. But by this means they lose the greater part of the gas or air by which their dough should be made light.
The true way is, to take their sour milk or butter-milk, and stir meal into it till a thin batter is formed, and then dissolve their saleratus or soda, and stir that quickly and thoroughly into the batter, and then hastily add meal till the batter or dough is brought into the consistency desired.
If, instead of sour milk or butter-milk, a solution of muriatic or tartaric acid is used, the bread will be equally light. In this case, the batter should be first made with a solution of saleratus or soda, and then the solution of acid should be stirred in as above described. Batter cakes are made in this manner very light and very promptly. When from any cause batter or dough mixed with yeast fails to rise according to expectations, the thorough mixing in, first the solution of muriatic or tartaric acid, and then the solution of saleratus or soda, will, in a few minutes, make the whole mass very light; but such cakes and bread are not so sweet and savory as those raised with good sweet yeast.