The Weekly Visitor

Hood asks: "Who has not met with home-made bread, a heavy compound of putty and lead?"

It is a lamentable fact that bread has been a much observed portion of our diet, and without doubt the average servant has been slower accomplishing the art of bread-making than many other branches. So long as bread forms the staple article of the cuisine, and lies at the foundation of nearly every meal, there cannot be too much attention given to it. The plainest meal is made palatable by good sweet bread; but a heavy, sour, sodden mass ruins the most elaborate form in which it may be presented.

The great secret of bread-making lies in the unceasing attention given to details, including the selection of the flour, the freshness of the yeast, and the thoroughness of mixing and kneading: and above all, conscientious effort. It is very easy to slight bread-making, to leave it to itself. To rise or not to rise, that is the question, and yet some servants take no heed and the dough is more likely to degenerate before morning than to improve.

Good bread is the basis on which a healthful diet rests; neglect it and dyspeptic tendencies assert the fact promptly. Therefore, bread-making belongs properly to the elementary branch of cookery, and requires patience, diligence, and practice, for a successful achievement. If one-tenth part of the time and interest that is given to cake and pastry were given to bread-making, there would be a marked improvement in the average household as regards bread.

The finest, whitest flour is the "Haxall," or the "new process" flour, which makes very white, refined looking bread. Bread that contains the most nutriment is made from the flour that has a coarse grain. The new process cleans the grain of the outer husks without the injurious effects of heating, and gives it a granulated consistency, owing to the presence of the minute particles of hard, flinty gluten. It is usually made from the best quality of wheat and keeps well. Many consider it superior to all other kinds for bread-making. As it contains more gluten it swells more than the old process flour, or the "St. Louis," while the same measure of flour makes a larger quantity of bread. The "St. Louis" is preferred for cake and pastry.

Scientists and physicians are heartily endorsing the whole-wheat flour, or that which retains the whole of the gluten, or the nutritive portion, with all the bran sifted out. This is produced and introduced by the Health Food Company, and only the choosest kinds of wheat are used. Bread made of this flour is found to be sweet and agreeable to the taste, light and spongy in texture, with none of the objectionable features of Graham bread, and answering fully all the requirements of perfect nutrition. Any flour that contains much of the indigestible bran causes inanition of the digestive organs, consequently it is neither economical nor healthful.