That it may prove thus beneficial to my fellow creatures in a high degree, is my hearty and fervent desire.
S. GRAHAM.
Northampton, April 12, 1837.
TREATISE ON BREAD.
HISTORY OF BREAD.
Primitive food of man. Bruising and grinding grain. Baking. Invention of leavened bread. Bread among the Greeks and Romans—among the Hebrews. Simplicity of the bread now used in many countries.
In the English version of the sacred scriptures, the term Bread is frequently used to signify vegetable food in general. Thus in Gen. iii, 19, the Lord says to Adam—“In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread (or food) till thou return to the ground.” See also Gen. xviii, 5, and xxviii, 20, and Ex. ii, 20.
The most extended sense of the word, however, according to general usage, comprehends all farinaceous vegetable substances which enter into the diet of man; such as the farinaceous seeds or grain, nuts, fruit, roots, &c. And in this extended sense, Bread, in some form or other, has been the principal article in the diet of mankind, from the earliest generations of the human race, to the present time; except among the few, small and scattered tribes, which have, perhaps, ever since the days of Noah, in different parts of the earth, subsisted mainly on animal food.
It is nearly certain that the primitive inhabitants of the earth, ate their food with very little, if any artificial preparation.
The various fruits, nuts, seeds, roots, and other vegetable substances on which they fed, were eaten by them in their natural state, with no other grinding than that which was done by the teeth.
As the human family increased, and population became more dense and extended, and providential measures more necessary, the condition and circumstances of society gradually led to the invention and adoption of the simple, and, at first, rude arts of domestic life. Among these, was that of bruising the harder articles of their food, such as nuts and seeds, or grain, on flat stones, selected and kept for the purpose. By constant use, these stones in time became hollowed out; and being thereby rendered more convenient, men at length began to form mortars and pestles from stones; and probably the next step was the construction of the rude kind of hand-mills, which continued in use for many centuries; and indeed, which, with the stone mortars, have, throughout all ages and in almost every portion of the earth, been used in the ruder states of society.